ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
‘229 
Gymnoascus. A. cinnabarinus , found on alligator’s excrement, presents a 
connecting link between Gymnoascus and Eurotium. In Chsetotheca the 
peritheces are depressed and hemispherical, thick-walled and not coiled, 
and are surrounded by long slender blackish tliick-walled hairs ; the 
pear-shaped or nearly spherical asci arise laterally or at the end of very 
delicate much-branched hyphee ; the spores are eight in an ascus, 
smooth, and lens-shaped. 
Prof. Zukal holds there is no real analogy between the mode of 
formation of the ascus of the Gymnoascaceae and that of the archicarp of 
Eurotium , &c. Its origin is simply an accumulation of protoplasm in a 
hypha, the apex of which then becomes coiled by circumnutation. He 
believes that the basal portion of the slender sterile hyphae in the fruc- 
tification of the Gymnoascaceae serves for the conveyance of nutrient 
material to the ascogenons branches ; and that the corresponding hyphae 
in Penicillium perform the same function. The true Gymnoascaceae — 
Endomyces , Gymnoascus , Ctenomyces , and Penicillium — excluding 
Eremascus , are in fact nearly allied to Eurotium, Aphanoascus , Cephalo- 
theca , Chsetotheca, and Microascus. 
Disease of the Beetroot.* — M. E. Prillieux has been able to follow 
the various phases of a beetroot disease, the chief characteristic of 
which is that it causes the young leaves to dry up and become 
black. The disease has been attributed to a fungus named by Fuckel 
Sporidesmium putrefaciens. As, however, the figure published by 
Fuckel does not correspond to any of the forms observed by the author 
on the small black leaves at the heart of the beetroot, he deems these to 
be due to a fungus for which he proposes the name of Phyllosticta tabijica , 
which causes white spots on the petioles. 
Black-rot of Grapes. j — In reference to the alleged identity of 
Phyllosticta Labruscse and P. Ampelopsidis with Lastadia Bidwellii, 
Mr. B. T. Galloway finds that inoculation of either the berry or leaf of 
Vitis and Ampelopsis with pycnid-spores from berries or leaves of the 
grape infected with the black-rot gives no result ; while inoculation of 
Ampelopsis or F«7*s-leaves with ascospores from infected grape-berries 
resulted in the formation of pycnids and spores of Phyllosticta 
Ampelopsidis. 
Fungi parasitic on Forest-trees. :£ — Herr E. Rostrup gives a sum- 
mary of his observations during the years 1883-1888 on the fungi which 
cause diseases on forest trees in Denmark. They relate chiefly to the 
following species : — 
Melampsora pinitorqua ( Cseoma pinitorquum), on Pinus excelsa and 
Mughus, connected genetically with the Melampsora on Populus tremula ; 
M. betulina , much more injurious to Betula odorata than to B. verrucosa ; 
Peridermium Pini includes three distinct species, Coleosporium Senecionis 
on various species of Senecio , and apparently also on Campanula, with its 
aecidio-form P. Woljii on the leaves of various species of Pinus of the 
group Pinaster, Cronartium asclepiadeum on Vincetoxicum officinale, with 
* Comptes Rendus, cxi. (1890) pp. 614-6. 
f Bot. Gazette., xv. (1890) pp. 255-9. 
j Tidsskr. f. Skovbrug, xii. (1890) pp. 175-238 (11 figs.). See Bot. Centralbl.. 
xliii (1890) p. 353. 
