

THE SMALLER FUNGI. 565 
are distributed over a wide area; many are found in Europe 
and North America; some occur in Asia, Africa, and Aus- 
tralia.” (pp. 5, 6.) à 
_ The Rev. Dr. M. A. Curtis, in his Catalogue of Plants o 
North Carolina, published at Raleigh, in 1867, furnishes us 
with as many as thirty species, to be found on’ the leaves 
of as many different living plants. Other ‘lists in different 
_ parts of the United States give us still other species infest- 
_ ing other kinds of plants. Thus Schweinitz, in his “Synop- 
_ Sis of North American Fungi,” mentions or else describes 
forty-one distinct species, which grow upon the leaves and 
other parts of native plants. From these let us select his 
- Aecidium ranunculacearum, which attacks the foliage of 
_ Various kinds of the buttercups, or Ranunculus. This fungus 
is likewise found in England, and listen to what our author 
= Writes about it: 
= “It is found on several species of Ranunculus, as R. acris, 
, and repens. The leaf is thickened at the spot oc- 
_ cupied by the parasite, and generally, without indication, on 
a the opposite surface. Sometimes one spot, at others several, 
cur on the same leaf. The peridia are densely crowded 
_ together, often arranged in a eircinate manner, 7. e., like a 
_ Watch-spring. The seeds (spores) are orange, but slightly 
_ Yarying in tint on different species of Ranunculus.” 
| several species of Ranunculus here cited, though in- 
: ‘troduced plants, have become common in this country, and 
_ Serve to enamel with golden blossoms our own meadows and 
elds. The swelling or excrescence upon the leaves, thus 
l technically called peridium, as we have before noticed, splits 
ol the top into many points or teeth, and renders it a pretty 
fringed cup filled with the yellow spores. On this account 
bs Æcidiums are termed cluster-cups, the more $0, espe 
MMi} when they are arranged in clusters upon the leaf.’ Of 
“Species which in England infests the leaves of the“ Goat's- 
: thi , i Tragopogon); we are informed that “the spores s 
MS Species are orange, sub-globose, sometimes angular, an 
