CHVPT0S1?H^RIA millepunctata. 
77 
naked eye but the black dots on the epidermis. The sphserules, 
which are in the substance of the bark, fall with it.” 
One would have thought, with so circumstantial a description, 
there would never have been the slightest doubt as to what 
species it was which Greville intended. 
In 1836 Berkeley, in the fifth volume of the “ English Flora,” 
transfers Greville’s name as a synonym to Sphceria corticis , Sow., 
a small figure having been given in Sowerby’s Fungi, pi. 372, fig. 
5, at about 1797, and called by him Sphceria corticis, but without 
any statement as to what branches the Spliceria was attached, or 
the slightest indication of the fruit. It is possible, even probable, 
that it was the same as Greville’s, judging from the figures, but the 
specimen in Sowerby’s herbarium at once sets the question at rest. 
It is a piece of ash twig, with the Sphceria millepunctata upon it. 
Berkeley therefore was right, as proved by Greville’s authentic 
specimens, and Sowerby’s authentic specimens, in regarding the 
two as absolutely identical. Then, in addition, Berkeley quotes 
Sphceria populina , Pers. Ic. Piet. t. 21, f. 5, 6, as a synonym. 
Was he accurate in this? It might be that he was so, and it 
might not , for we have never seen an authentic specimen of 
the plant which Persoon called S. populina. 
As if still further to mix up uncertainties, Fries, in his “ Sys- 
tema,” published in 1822, adopts Sowerby’s name of Sphceria 
corticis, and gives Sphceria populina of Persoon as a synonym, the 
habitat of Fries’s plant being “ In cortice Populi j’ 
If we assume that there were two species similar in external 
appearance, one growing on ash, which was, as we have already 
seen, the Sphceria millepunctata of Greville, and the Sphceria 
corticis of Sowerby ; the other growing on poplar, which was the 
S. populina of Persoon, and the Sphceria corticis of Fries, we have 
evidence that Sowerby’s figure without description was insufficient, 
inasmuch as it could be made to represent two species, and there- 
fore the name of Sphceria corticis, Sow. , should have been dropped 
in favour of S. millepunctata , Grev., and the S. corticis , Fries, 
which was based on an insufficient figure, without description, 
should never have taken the place of S. populina , Pers. For our 
present aim we will assume two species, and call them S. mille- 
punctata, Grev., on ash (“ never seen except upon the ash and 
Sphceria populina , Pers., on poplar. 
In the “ Handbook ” we restored the name of S. millepunctata , 
but quoted the synonyms of both species (supposing them really 
to be distinct) under the one name. 
We come now to Nitschke “ Pyrenomycetes Germanici” 
(1867), and, in so far as we understand it, we find him describing 
the Sphceria on poplar (p. 161), but giving it the name of Valsa 
millepunctata (Grev.), with S. corticis , Sow., and S. populina, Pers., 
as well as the figure of Greville under it. Just, in fact, reversing 
the species, for he has another, by the name of Valsa eunomia 
(Fr.), on ash, quoting Sph. corticis , Curr. (which we know was 
