ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
215 
secretions generally distributed through the Thelephorei. They are 
of three different forms, tubular, club-shaped ( knuppelformig ), and 
spherical. 
Mineral Food-Materials of Fungi.* — From further experiments, 
made chiefly on Aspergillus niger, but also on Penicillium and Mucor , 
Dr. W. Benecke confirms his previous conclusion that magnesium is 
essential to the growth of fungi, while calcium is not. Iron is also 
indispensable. With regard to potassium, even such a very small per- 
centage in the nutrient fluid as 0 * 00003 per cent, of potassium chloride 
makes the difference in the luxuriant growth or otherwise of the mould- 
fungi. 
New Family of Cryptogamic Parasites.j — According to Prof. J. 
Debray, the common disease of the vine known in France as bnmissure, 
characterised by the presence of brown or blackish blotches on the 
leaves, is not due, as stated by Yiala and Sauvageau, to a parasite which, 
can be referred to the genus Plasmodiophora. The disease is of very 
w r ide distribution, having been detected by Debray in plants belonging 
to 42 natural orders ; not only the leaf, but the root, branch, and flower, 
in fact every part of the plant, is liable to its attacks. According to 
him, the organism which causes it cannot be referred to any recognised 
family ; he makes it the type of a new genus Pseudocommis , and of a 
new family Pseudocommide^b, allied to the Yampyrellese and Myxomy- 
cetes. The organism is met with in various forms in the cells of the 
host, never occurring in the intercellular spaces ; its plasmode may be 
intimately mixed with, and scarcely distinguishable from, the protoplasm 
of the cell, or it may be more sharply differentiated. Under certain 
conditions, the plasmode travels from the interior of the cells of the 
leaf or other part of the plant, to the surface, where it appears as a slimy 
or gummy secretion, and by this means passes to other parts of the 
plant. 
New Genera of Fungi. — Among a number of new species of copro- 
philous fungi of Belgium, M. E. Marchal J describes the following new 
genera : — 
Boudierellci (Sacc. MS.). Ascomata carnosula, sessilia, hemispherica ; 
discus planus, margine ciliatus, axis papillatus ; asci oblongi, 4-spori, 
fissura longitrorsus dehiscentes, paraphysati ; sporidia globosa, hyalina, 
laciniis numerosis angustis insigniter contexta. Among Discomycetes, 
near to Boudiera. 
Laclinodocliium. Sporodichia alba, subglobosa, sessilia, e gelatina 
tenaci baud fluxili composita, sporoplioris tecta ; conidia oblonga, in 
sporophoris hyalinis simplicibus longe exertis acrogene-capitulata. 
Among Hyphomycetes, nearest to Cephalodochium. 
A new genus of Ustilagineae, Sirentyloma, is described by Herr P. 
Hennings, § from Goyaz, with the following diagnosis : — Mycelium inter- 
cellulare, sporae catenate, dein decedentes, fuscae, episporio crasso, levi. 
* Jalirb. f. wiss. Bot. (Pfeffer u. Strasburger), xxviii. (1895) pp. 486-530. Cf. 
this Journal, 1895, p. 545. 
f Rev. de Viticulture, 1895. See Nature, liii. (1896) p. 18. Cf. this Journal, 
1893, p. 80. 
Z Bull. Soc. R. Bot. Belg., xxxiv. (1895) pp. 125-49 (2 pis. and 5 figs.). 
§ Iledwigia, xxxiv. (1895) p. 319. 
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