OF THE UNITED STATES. 



23 



Gymnosporangium conicum, De Cand. 



Gymnosporangium conicum D. C, Flore franQaise, Vol. n, p. 21G; Reess, loc. cit., p. 20. 



Gymnosporangium Juniperi Ek., Obs. i, p. 9; Species Plantarum, Vol. vi, part 2, p. 127 ; 

 Schweinitz, Syn. Fung. Am. Bor., No. 3094 ; Berkeley, Outlines, PI. n, fig. 5; Curtis, 

 Plants of North Carolina ; Peck, in 25th Report ; Frost, in Tuckerman's Cat. Amherst 

 Plants. 



Gymnosporangium juniperinum Fr., Syst. Myc, Vol. m, p. 506 ; Exsicc. Ravenel, Fungi 



Carol., Fasc. v, 87. 

 Podisoma juniperinum Oersted, Nouvelles Observations, 1806. 

 Podisoma Gymnosporangium Cooke, Notes on Podisoma, PI. 18, fig. 2. 



On Juniperus communis. Northern and Central Europe. 



On Juniperus virginiana, Newton, Mass. (Farlow) ; New York State (Peck); South 

 Carolina (Ravenel). 



Sporiferous masses, subpyriform or indefinitely expanded, orange colored, half an inch 

 high; spores oblong, two-celled, constricted at the septum, 48^-58^ long, by 15,u-18^ 

 broad; promycelia either two or four from each cell, given off near the septum. Mycelium 

 perennial, forming long swellings in the branches. 



As before said, the determination of American specimens of the present species is 

 very unsatisfactory. The name Gymnosporangium Juniperi Lk., to be sure, often 

 appears in catalogues of American fungi, but in many cases the determination is evidently 

 doubtful, and I have not thought best to accept it in several cases, but have formed 

 my opinion rather on specimens actually collected by myself or belonging to authentic 

 collections. In most instances the species is said to occur on Juniperus virginiana. In 

 Tuckerman's Catalogue of Amherst Plants, it is reported by Frost as growing on J. com- 

 munis, but I have not been able to examine Frost's specimens, which probably belong to 

 the true G. conicum. In the Bulletin of the Minnesota Academy of Sciences for 1876, 

 the species is said to have been found on living branches of various trees, a statement 

 which is probably inaccurate, and tends to make the determination doubtful. As far as my 

 own experience goes, I have only once found a form which was probably to be referred to 

 G. conicum, and, in that case, the fungus was in such a condition that an accurate deter- 

 mination was out of the question. Of all the specimens which I have examined, the 

 No. 87, Fasc. v, of Ravenel's Fung. Carol., and two specimens in Herb. Curtis, collected 

 by Ravenel on the San tee Canal in 1848 and 1850, come nearest to the true G. conicum. 

 There is also a specimen in the Sprague collection which may belong to this species. 

 Without larger sets of specimens in good condition one can not well say whether the 

 specimens referred to may not belong to other species. Most specimens marked G. Juni- 

 peri Lk. which I have seen were gathered after the fungus had been exposed to the rain 

 some time, and the only character by which one could be guided was the mode of germi- 

 nation of the spores, which, as I have said is generally that found in G. clavipes, and I am 

 not sure that all the so-called G. Juniperi recorded on J. virginiana is not to be referred 

 to G. clavipes. More material and further study are necessary to settle that point, and it 

 is not impossible that some European botanist may discover that G. conicum has at times 

 the same swollen pedicels and apical germination as G. clavijies. If that turns out to be 



