Moss Parasites. 



9 



are merely different conditions of one and the same species, for 

 nothing is more common than for fungi to exhibit two forms of 

 fruit on the same or on different plants, after the fashion of 



FlG. 1. — Septoria tliecicola, 

 Berk, and Broome. 



a. Perithecia, magnified. 

 h. Spores, highly magnified. 



Fig. 2. — Sphceria emperigonia, 

 Auerswald. 



a. Asci, magnified. 



I. Spores, highly magnified. 



monoicous or dioicous Phoenogaras, a fact long since suspected 

 by Fries, and now proved to demonstration by the brothers 

 Tulasne. 



Besides these pigmies of the vegetable kindom there are 

 some higher Fungi peculiar to mosses, or indifferent as to their 

 nutriment, whose spawn or mycelium runs over their leaves and 

 quickly effects their destruction. 



For example, nothing is more common than to find mossy 

 sticks in our woods covered with delicate snow-white patches 

 consisting of threads far more slender than those of a spider's- 

 web. These patches soon extend to the mosses, which pre- 

 sently become discoloured, and ultimately fade altogether. This 

 enemy when fully developed is found to be Gorticium aracli- 

 noideum, one of those fungi, which at a later period form little 

 solid pellets which live through the winter, and are ready on 

 returning spring to attack the tender shoots of another year's 

 growth. 



Another fungus still more destructive to mosses can scarcely 

 have escaped the notice of those who are accustomed to greet 

 Nature in all her phases. In calcareous districts, especially the 

 Oolitic, where the stone fences are capped with a kind of mor- 

 tar consisting almost entirely of comminuted oolite, which has 

 been crushed down upon the roads, and adapted admirably for 

 the development of many a moss, nothing is more common 

 than to see the pretty tufts, which rejoice the artist's eye with 

 their warm tints when lighted up by a sunbeam, more or 

 less completely marred by large white mouldy patches, which 

 soon run into decay. A close inspection shows that here again 

 we have the mycelium of a fungus at work, though of a very 

 different kind from that just mentioned. At first, indeed, 

 nothing but the cotton-web is visible, but this soon becomes 



