MILDEW AND BRAND. 
189 
In the spores of the species to which attention has been 
more specially directed we have types of the principal forms. 
In the “ corn-mildew” they are elongated, and tapering to- 
wards either end ; in the “ coronated brand ” the apex is 
crowned with spicular processes ; in the “ wind-flower brand” 
the entire spores are echinulate ; in the “ mint brand ” they 
are globose ; in the “ composite brand ” elliptic ; in the 
“ earth-nut brand,” nearly cut in two at the septum ; and in 
the “ dandelion brand,” so variable in form that no two are 
precisely alike. On the other hand, all are characterized by a 
transverse septum dividing each spore into two cells. 
From this genus we pass to another, in which the 
spores are usually divided into three cells, and which, from 
this cause, has been named Triphragmium. Only one species 
of this genus has hitherto been found in this country, and 
that not very commonly, on the leaves of the meadow-sweet 
Spircea ulmaria (fig. 17). Externally it much resembles, in 
the size and character of the pustules, many of the above- 
named brands, but when seen under the microscope this 
similarity disappears. In general outline the spores are nearly 
globose, and externally papillose. In one species, found on 
the Continent, but not hitherto in Great Britain, the spores 
are covered with curious long-hooked spines, by means of 
which they adhere tenaciously to each other. In germination, 
the spores of Triphragmium do not offer any noteworthy de- 
viation from those of Puccinia* and the chief interest of our 
indigenous species lies in the three-celled form of its spores, 
to which occasionally those of Puccinia variabilis approximate, 
and may be regarded as the link which unites the two 
genera. 
The old story of “ Eyes and no eyes ” is too often literally 
true, not only with the children it was written to amuse and 
instruct, but also with children of a larger growth who scorn 
such baby tales, and disdain such baby morals. Out of more 
than a thousand indigenous species of microscopic fungi, of 
which there is generally some evidence afforded of their pre- 
sence, visible to the naked eye, how few are there of the 
millions that inhabit our island who can count twenty species 
that they have ever seen ; still fewer that have noticed one 
hundred. Amongst the twenty species known to the few will 
probably be included one which appears in autumn in promi- 
nent black spots, the size of a large pin's head, or half a turnip 
# Mr. Currey has only seen the tips of the germinating threads swell, and 
become septate, each of the joints thus formed falling off and germinating 
without producing spherical sporidia ; whilst Tulasne figures globular sporidia, 
as will be seen in our fig. 19, reduced from the figure by Tulasne. ( Vide 
Currey, in “ Quarterly Journal qf Microscopical Science,” 1857, pp. 117, &c.) 
VOL. III. — NO. X. 0 
