164 Mycologia . 



dant material of this species in excellent condition for study. 

 Doctor Seaver identified the fungus, and suggested the advisabil- 

 ity of studying it critically to determine whether it might not be 

 referred more properly to some other genus. Professor Whetzel 

 generously placed the material at the writer's disposal, and a pre- 

 liminary examination revealed that the fungus differs in several 

 important respects from other described species of Nitschkia. 

 The following summer the examination of all the specimens of 

 this species in the Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden 

 disclosed the fact that years before Ellis had received a specimen 

 of the fungus collected by Mrs. E. M. Swainson in Jamaica. 

 This specimen contains only material of the imperfect stage, and 

 Ellis labeled it Botrytis seriata Ell. & Ev. The date of collection 

 is not given, and the host is not named. The leaves are, however, 

 indistinguishable from those of Gesneria alhi flora and were prob- 

 ably taken from this host. Botrytis seriata was apparently never 

 described by Ellis, and a search of literature has failed to reveal 

 a citation of this name. The fungus is not a species of Botrytis 

 in our present conception of the limits of this genus. 



The genus Nitschkia Otth is included in the Sphaeriaceae- 

 Allantosporae of Saccardo, and is a member of the Cucurbitari- 

 aceae in Lindau's arrangement of the Sphaeriales in Engler und 

 Prantl's Die naturlichen Pflanzenfamihen." As characterized 

 by Lindau the Cucurbitariaceae possess globose perithecia seated 

 on a more or less well-developed stroma. In the genus Nitschkia 

 the perithecia are cespitose to scattered, and rupture a covering 

 membrane, or are more rarely superficial. The perithecial wall is 

 black, membranaceous to subcoriaceous, and collapses on drying, 

 becoming cupulate. The ostiolum is inconspicuous. The asci are 

 clavate, 8-spored, and accompanied by thread-like paraphyses. 

 The spores are allantoid, one-celled, and hyaline. The species are 

 typically saprophytic. Ellis in his North American Pyreno- 

 mycetes " includes in the genus Nitschkia only those species in 

 which the perithecia are cespitose, and places in the genus Coelo- 

 sphaeria Saccardo the species with scattered perithecia. Sac- 

 cardo also has adopted this conception of generic limits. 



The parasite under consideration on Gesneria albiflora lacks 

 certain characters common to species of Nitschkia and Coelo- 



