Speare: Entomogenous Fungi 



67 



adhere to one another tenaciously. The character of the fruiting 

 stalk is illustrated on Plate 3, Fig. I. Certain of the hyphae 

 which lie near the surface of the stalk produce short, usually 

 sessile subulate sporophores and while there is some variation in 

 the shape of these bodies in the different species, they invariably 

 have swollen or inflated basal portions which in all of the forms 

 are surmounted by single extremely long, attenuated sterigmata. 

 It should be noted, however, that many specimens, particularly 

 old ones, do not show such a richly developed sporiferous condi- 

 tion as that illustrated, because development of the sporophores 

 seems to cease in many instances when the inflated basal portions 

 only are formed. Furthermore, after spore formation, the 

 sterigmata often collapse, leaving the swollen basal portions 

 however, in situ, rendering a condition quite comparable to that 

 figured and described by Vosseler for Isaria surinamensis. 



The spores which are borne singly at the tips of the sterigmata 

 vary from fusoid to allantoid to cylindrical in the different species 

 and are also somewhat variable in size. In all cases a gelatinous 

 substance surrounds them which if carelessly examined might be 

 considered as a part of the spores. That this substance is a 

 secondary product can be determined by examining regions of the 

 synnemata where the spores are being formed. In such posi- 

 tions the newly formed spores are naked and definitely of the 

 fusiform type. Furthermore, if the spores on adjacent sporo- 

 phores come in contact with one another their matrices coalesce in 

 a manner such as that illustrated on Plate 3, Fig. 16, demonstrat- 

 ing that no cell wall is present. 



In all cases the parasitized hosts are fixed to the substrata by 

 undifferentiated rhizoidal hyphae. 



As noted in the paper cited above (Speare 1912) it is probable 

 that these forms are the imperfect stages of one or more species 

 of Cordyceps or related genera. Actually, however, such a rela- 

 tionship has not been proven in a single instance either by pure 

 culture, continuity of development, association in the same 

 stroma, or other means. Furthermore, while the writer has col- 

 lected and examined hundreds of specimens of the species which 

 occurs in epidemic form on Siphanta acuta in Hawaii, no perfect 



