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SOUTH AFEICAN XYLAEIAS OCCURRINO AROUND 
DURBAN, NATAL. 
By Paul A. Van der Bijl. 
(With Plates YII and VIII.) 
The genus Xylaria belongs to the Pyrenomycetes group of the Asco- 
mycetes fungi and is included in the family Xylariaceae. 
The members of this family are characterised by their superficial 
stromata, with the perithecia arranged along the periphery of the stromata 
and usually embedded in them, though at times more or less protruding. 
They have brown to dark-coloured usually 1 -celled spores borne in cylin- 
drical asci. 
From other members of the family the genus Xylaria is distinguished by 
the following combined characters: (1) Stroma black, erect, branched or 
unbranched, globose, cylindrical or club-shaped, and with a shorter or longer 
sterile stalk which is rarely obsolete ; (2) perithecia many, along the periphery 
of and embedded in the stroma or more or less protruding and rarely 
partly free ; (3) asci cylindrical ; spores brown or dark-coloured, ovoid, 
1-celled, straight to slightly fusoid. 
In the young stage the fertile portion or club of the stroma is covered 
with a whitish, felt-like conidial layer. Specimens in this stage are immature 
and cannot be specifically determined. 
The genus Xylaria can for convenience be divided into two main divisions * : 
(1) those with solid stromata, (2) those with the centre- of the stromata pithy 
and becoming hollow. All the species herein dealt with belong to the 
first division. 
Xylaria spp. are most frequently found growing saprophytically either in 
the ground or on decaying wood, fruit, etc. It is, however, interesting to 
note that Fomme and Thomasf and subsequently Wolf and Cromwell^ 
have associated Xylaria spp. with a root-rot of apple trees. In 1912 the 
writer, on a visit to Mr. de Villiers, dist. Ermelo, Transvaal, observed 
invariably among the roots of dying carnation plants a rich growth of a 
* Lloyd, C. G-., ' Xylaria Notes,' No. 1, 1918. 
t Fomme, F. D., and Thomas, H. E., "The Root Disease of the Apple in 
Virginia," ' Science,' n.s., xlv, 1917. 
X Wolf, F. A., and Cromwell, E. O., "Xylaria Root-rots of Apple," ^ Journ. Agric. 
Res.,' ix, p. 269, 1917. 
