258 



Mycologia 



Stromata scattered, circular to slightly elongated, sometimes 

 erumpent before the delimitation of the perithecia, black, 

 minutely roughened, amphigenous (chiefly hypophyllous) and 

 caulicolous, not yet observed to be fructicolous, bearing 5-20 

 perithecia ; perithecia approximately 1 mm. in length, in some 

 cases crowded and covering the whole stroma, in others de- 

 veloped only at the margin of the stroma and radiating, the in- 

 dividual perithecia lying almost parallel to the surface of the 

 leaf ; the lower half of the mature perithecium subcylindrical, 

 roughened like the stroma, and resembling closely the basal half 

 of the perithecium of C. oreophila; the upper half, however, 

 compressed laterally and definitely and broadly wedge-shaped ; de- 

 hiscence occurring along the sharp edge of the wedge, the op- 

 posite faces of the wedge pulling apart and recurving, exposing 

 the lighter colored inner surface of the perithetical wall ; ' asci 

 resembling those of C. oreophila, 8-spored; spores 10-12/x in 

 diameter. 



Parasitic on unidentified species of Podocarpus in Brazil. 



In general appearance this species differs considerably from 

 any other in the family on account of the wedge-shaped apex of 

 the perithecium. The stroma and basal half of the perithecium 

 are, however, very similar to the corresponding structures in C. 

 oreophila, and a consideration of all the characters show these 

 two species to be closely related. Both have typically 8-spored 

 asci. Although the normal mature perithecia in the available 

 material of C. brdsiUensis have the characteristic wedge-shaped 

 apex, occasional small, atypical and apparently stunted perithecia 

 developed on the same stromata are of a different form. Such 

 perithecia occasionally show the trilobed apex typical of C. 

 oreophila or the bilobed apex more common in C. portoricensis. 

 This condition may perhaps be explained as reversion to an 

 ancestral type. A theoretical consideration of this point is given 

 in the introduction to this paper. In the specimens examined 

 there are several hundred typical full-sized perithecia with wedge- 

 shaped apices and a relatively insignificant number of atypical 

 individuals. No few-spored asci have been observed. 



