Geology and Natural History. 325 



311 titles given in the List nearly two-thirds are of works which 

 have appeared in the last ten years ; the greater part in fact in 

 the last five years. Furthermore, while the works published 

 prior to 1885 were almost entirely by a small number of British 

 and continental mycologists, since that date the authors have 

 been for the greater part persons living in Australia. The two 

 hundred pages devoted to a list species of Australian fungi with 

 habitats and notes of general characters, are followed by a list of 

 84 edible species. Excluding a few characteristic forms like 

 Cyttaria Giamii and Polyporus mylittce or native bread, one is 

 struck with the fact that the edible species of Australia are nearly 

 identical with those of Europe and North America. Some inter- 

 esting statistics are given which show the whole number of fungi 

 known in Australia to be 2,284, of which the greater number, 

 1,266, are Hymenomycetes. Uredincoe have 90, Ustilagineae 39 

 and Myxomycetes 52 species. Of the different host-plants, the 

 species of Eucalyptus are attacked by 54 species of fungi. The 

 species of Acacia come next with 16 parasites. The Host-Index 

 gives an alphabetical list of hosts with their parasites, without 

 synonymy, and a note of the organs attacked. This work by 

 Prof. McAlpine will be of very great assistance not only to Aus- 

 tralian mycologists but also to those of other countries, who will 

 be able at a glance to get a practical knowledge of the distribu- 

 tion of Australian vegetable parasites with a facility which would 

 otherwise be impossible. w. g. f. 



10. Der Reis- Brand unci cler Setaria-Brand ; by Oscar Bre- 

 feld, Botanisches Centralblatt, lxv, 97-108, January, 1895. — In 

 the twelfth part of his "Untersuchungen " Brefeld made mention ot 

 a smut of Oryza in which the spores did not germinate like those 

 of other Ustilagineaa but produced a mycelial thread with spores 

 arranged acropetally. He also described a very similar fungus 

 on jSetaria Cms Ardem from South America. Since then, having 

 obtained abundant material of the latter fungus, he has been able 

 to trace its development and finds that, besides the so-called smut- 

 spores, the fungus produces a well-marked sclerotium. The 

 sclerotia, alter remaining lor six months in moist sand, developed 

 into stalked fruit-bodies much like those of C lav iceps purpurea, 

 the common ergot. The ascospores on germinating produced 

 conidia like those produced by the smut-spores. Brefeld regards 

 the sclerotium, ascoporic form and smut-spores as stages of the 

 same fungus which he calls Ustilaginoidea iSetarioe, and the smut 

 of Oryza, although its development has not been traced, he 

 places in the same genus on grounds of analogy. The genus 

 Ustilaginoidea belongs to the Hypocreaceaa and the so-called smut- 

 spores in this case correspond to the chlamydospores of species 

 like Hypomyces chrysospermus. Brefeld ventures to predict from 

 this case that other supposed species of Ustilaginege will eventu- 

 ally be proved to be stages of Ascomycetes. It may be said, on 

 the other hand, however, that, in his Untersuchungen, Brefeld 

 showed that, although the Oryza-smut had been originally placed 



