32 



Mycologia 



lections having been kept in his home pending the action of the 

 administrator of the estate. Through the kindness of Professor 

 O. Mattirola it nevertheless has been possible to get in touch with 

 the son, Professor D. Saccardo, and he has visited the herbarium 

 and mailed us a fragment of material from a specimen labeled 

 " Ophiobolus graminis exempl. Mad. Libert." This is probably 

 the type collection, as the species was based on material in the 

 herbarium of Libert. 7 Unfortunately, however, the material sub- 

 mitted is worthless, since it bears no perithecia of Ophiobolus. A 

 second attempt to obtain material has been made, but has not yet 

 proved successful. It is hoped that it will be possible to publish 

 in a subsequent note information concerning the type specimen, but 

 until the herbarium is made more readily available this may not 

 be possible. 



Berlese states that he examined the original collection of O. 

 graminis in the herbarium of Saccardo, and that the figures of 

 perithecia, asci, and spores given by him were drawn from it. 

 His drawings of the perithecium indicate that the organism studied 

 is identical with our own, and although the spores as figured by 

 him are more slender than those of the take-all fungus, it is prob- 

 able that they were drawn inaccurately, since they do not corre- 

 spond with his description. In fact, his measurements of peri- 

 thecia, asci, and spores agree so closely with those obtained by us 

 for the take-all organism that its identity with O. graminis can 

 hardly be questioned. His failure to mention paraphyses, and his 

 statement that the spores are only tri-septate, are probably due to 

 his having seen only a small amount of relatively unfavorable 

 herbarium material. Since his description agrees with that of 

 Saccardo, there seems to be no reasonable justification for ques- 

 tioning his statement that the figures were drawn from the type 

 collection. He asserts further that he compared this material with 

 the type collections of Sphaeria eucrypta Berk. & Br. and S. cari- 

 ceti Berk. & Br. and found the three species to be identical. More- 

 over, he accepts the oldest specific name and designates the species 

 as O. eucryptus (Berk. & Br.) Sacc. 



7 Roumeguere, C, et Saccardo, P. A. Reliquiae mycologicae Libertianae, 

 series altera. Revue Mycologique 3: No. 11. 39-59- PI. i9, 20. 1881. 



