dis 
The cuticle of the leaf is stained with a red pigment where it has been attacked by the 
fungus, and the discoloration spreads into the palisade cells. 'The discoloured parts of 
the leaf tissue are swollen, so that the stromata lie on round, reddish or brown blisters, 
which are up to 5 mm. diam., and which are often so numerous as to become confluent. 
Hypostroma epidermal, filling certain of the epidermal cells with dark hyphal balls, 
especially under the centre of the superficial fruiting bodies ; mycelial strands also penetrate 
between the palisade cells. 
Fruiting body usually unilocular, 60-80 » high, with a thin black outer wall. Asci 
oval to clavate, aparaphysate, eight-spored, apedicellate, thick-walled round apex, staining 
brick red with iodine, 36-40 u x 224-25 4. Spores brown, two-celled, constricted ellip- 
soid, cells almost equal, upper loculus somewhat broader, 18-23 « 8-10 u. 
12. Hysterostoma orbiculata Syd. 
Ann. Myc. XIII (1915), p. 239. 
Syn. Dothidasteromella orbiculata Syd., Ann. Myc. X (1912), p. 41. 
On Olea verrucosa, Wellington, C.P., 18.11.10, Doidge [1031]; Port Elizabeth, 
17.10.09, West (immature) [1870]. 
In renaming this fungus, Theissen and Syd. (loc. cot.) remark that the species has been 
described from insufficient material, and that the diagnosis could be much improved after 
studying well-developed specimens. 
There is in the National Herbarium abundant material of the same collection as the 
type [1031], and much of this is in excellent condition. I am, however, only able to add 
a few details to the description cited above. 
Stromata usually epiphyllous, less commonly hypophyllous, circular in outline, 
dull black, 4-6 mm. in diameter, carbcnaceous ; the surface is rough and traversed by 
deep fissures or clefts. Each stroma is surrounded by a radiating fringe of hyphae, which 
are septate; 4-6 » thick, and run parallel to one another. These hyphae are, as a rule, 
not branched, and are often fused by their lateral walls into hyphal strands, but are not 
compacted into a stroma. 
The central part of the stroma consists of numerous loculi, which are irregularly 
arranged ; they are round to irregular in shape and very closely crowded, 250-300 u in 
diameter. The lateral walls are almost perpendicular, the total height of the ascostroma 
being 240-270 vu. The outer covering is radial in structure, and it breaks down irregularly 
at maturity. 
There appear to be no stomata on the upper surface of the leaf of Olea verrucosa, 
but there are at intervals folds or clefts in the cuticle similar to those beneath which 
the guard cells are formed on the lower surface. The hypostroma of the fungus is found 
in the epidermal cells, between the epidermis and the cuticle and in the thickness of the 
cuticle itself; here it is pseudo-cellular and dark brown. There is also an almost con- 
tinuous layer of colourless, interwoven hyphae lying between the epidermis and the 
palisade cells and penetrating into the upper part of the latter. The dark-coloured 
hypostroma breaks through the leaf, often at the clefts mentioned above; the cuticle is 
split irregularly in several directions, and through the fissures thus formed the hypostromal 
tissue grows and produces the fruiting bodies, the hypothecium being in direct connection 
with the hypostroma at several points under each loculus. 
The hypothecium is brown, similar in texture to the hypostroma in the epidermal 
cells and cuticle, but less dense; it is about 90-100 u high in the centre of each loculus, 
where it forms an irregular cushion, on which the asci are borne, and becomes much 
thinner at the periphery, measuring about 45 wu. Asci elongated, club-shaped, paraphysate, 
eight-spored, thick walled round the apex, 75-140 u x 16-32u. Paraphyses numerous, 
filiform, 2-3 vy thick, becoming more or less conglutinate at the tips and forming an 
epithecial layer. The asci do not react to iodine, but stain a brick-red colour. Spores 
usually distichous, oblong, medially uniseptate, brown, thick walled, 30-34 u x 12-15 u, 
upper loculus very slightly broader and more broadly rounded than the lower. 
