hish Societies. 
13 
IRISH SOCIETIES. 
DUBLIN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 
November 10. — The Club met at Lcinster House, the President (D. 
McArdle) in the Chair. 
H. A. I.afferty showed the perithecial or perfect fruiting stage of the 
fungus hitherto known as Verticillium cinnabarimim (Corda) Reinke 
and Berth. The fungus is one of the commonest saprophytes associated 
with decayed potato -tubers. Pure cultures of it on various media have 
been grown for many months, but no form of fructification other than the 
conidia borne on characteristically branched verticillate conidiophores 
has developed. On some decaying potatoes which had been thrown in at, 
wet ditch two or three kinds of perithecia developed, one of them dark 
red in colour and associated with the conidial stage of this fungus was 
especially abundant. Repeated cultures, starting from a single ascospore 
in each case, from these perithecia resulted in the development of pure 
cultures of Verticillium cinnabar inum. Hence it is quite definitely proved 
that the perithecia in question are those of this fungus. From their 
structure it is clear that the fungus must now be transferred to the genus 
Nectria. 
Prof. G. H. Carpenter showed specimens of a species of Lepidocampa 
from the Seychelles, drawing especial attention to the exquisitely fringed 
pulvilli of the feet and the delicately ribbed scales with which the body- 
segments of the bristle -tails of this genus are clothed. The familiar 
Campodeae, which represent the family in Europe and the British Islands, 
are destitute of scales. Hitherto Lepidocampa has been known to inhabit 
the Malay Archipelago and various parts of South America. Its presence 
in the Seychelles is therefore of considerable geographical interest. 
W. F. GuNN exhibited a nest of one of the social wasps, which 
construct them in trees and thorny hedges. Under the microscope he 
showed a portion of the " paper " of which the nest is constructed. Por- 
tions of wood and bark are bitten off from fences and trees, masticated, 
and worked up into a pulp, from which the layers of paper are formed. 
These materials could be clearly discerned on the slide, and the charac- 
teristic fibres of the particular kind of wood used could be identified. 
D. McArdle showed the flask -shaped receptacles of Blasia pusilla (one 
of the frondose Hepaticae), which were full of globose gemmae, also issuing 
through the mouth of the ascending tubes. These gemmae, when matured, 
float in a protoplasmic fluid ; among them are glandular hairs, which 
become swollen by secretion and force the gemmae through the mouth 
of the tubes. At this period most of the gemmae are furnished with root 
hairs, and under favourable conditions will grow and repeat the life cycle. 
This is the asexual mode of reproduction in these curious plants, which 
in this species are seldom found in fruit on account of their dioicous 
character. The specimens exhibited had been collected by W. F. Gunn 
on a damp bank near the roadside at Clifden, Co. Galway, in October, 
1 91 5. 
