LICHENS AND FUNGI OF OTAGO, NEW ZEALAND. 423 



and have been described by me elsewhere* They are sub-marginal, papillseform, 

 with darker brown ostioles (fig. 39). The spermatid, (fig. 42 a) are rod-shaped ; 

 •00015" long, and -00005" broad ; borne on arthrosterigmata (b) about -00015" 

 broad, and of varying lengths, generally about 0015" long. 



n.— FUNGI (Plate XXX.) 



Genus I. Sphceria. 

 Species 1. S. Lindsayana, Currey MSS. (figs. 1 to 7). 



Diagnostic characters : Division, Caidicolce. — " Perithecia very small, round ; 

 rupturing the epidermis by a circular, rimose, or radiate fissure. Sporidia 8, biser- 

 iate, colourless, irregularly cymbiform, 00014 to 0002 inch long." 



" The perithecia are so adherent to the epidermis, that it is impossible to 

 make out the nature of the ostiolum. There is apparently no Rostellum ; or if 

 any, it is not visible above the epidermis. The plant, when dry, has somewhat 

 the appearance of Sphwria nebulosa, Fr." (Currey MSS.) 



Habitat. — Covers, in the form of very minute, point- like, black dots, the dry, 

 incurled, yellowish, dead leaves of Phormium tenaoa, Forst. (fig 1), (the familiar 

 and abundant " New Zealand flax") ; in the swamps of Glen Martin, Saddlehill. 



I have little doubt it will be found, if looked for,. in profusion on dead flax 

 leaves throughout the New Zealand islands. 



In the specimens, which I have myself examined under the lens and micro- 

 scope, the plant has very much the aspect of certain minute, corticolous Verrucariw. 

 There is, perhaps, a distinction, however, in the non-action of tincture of iodinef 

 on the hymenium of the Sphwria, and in the intimate adhesion of the perithecia of 

 the latter to the epidermis of the Phormium leaf — an adhesion, which renders it 

 difficult to manipulate them for microscopical examination, save after boiling 

 and maceration. 



In the mature state, the Fungus appears as a distinct, but minute, epidermal 

 papilla; its circumference marked by a dark, well-defined ring; its apex pierced 

 by a black, very small ostiole, normally punctiform, but becoming with age, com- 

 pression, or other causes, rimose or irregularly radiate (fig. 2 a). In old and 

 emptied perithecia, this ostiole widens variously, producing an urceola instead of 



* "Mem. Spermogones," p. 194, Plate X. figs. 16-19. 



\ The reaction of this tincture with the hymenial " gelatine" (so-called, hut which is really 

 that modification of starch designated by chemists Lichenine), is too variable and uncertain to consti- 

 tute a safe or good character for distinguishing Lichens from Fungi. Though this gelatine, and the 

 thecae specially, in the great majority of Lichens, give a reaction with tincture of iodine, which varies 

 in colour, from beautiful Prussian blue, to an obscure port-wine red, of every intensity of shade, 

 there is, in a minority of cases, no distinct coloration ; while, on the other hand, the blue coloration, 

 formerly supposed peculiar to Lichens, occurs, Mr Currey informs me (MSS. 1859), among indubi- 

 table Fungi. In other parts of this Paper I have shown that in the same species of Abrothallus, in 

 which there is generally no coloration by iodine, it nevertheless sometimes occurs in foreign speci- 

 mens. 



VOL. XXIV. PART II. 5 Y 



