OF CEETAIN SPMEIACEOUS FUNGI. 
547 
and has not hitherto been recorded amongst the British Sphserise ; but, not long since, I 
found a considerable number of specimens growing upon a fallen branch of Beech in 
company with Sphceria ([uaternata, Sphceria turgida, and a third Sphseria which I am 
unable to name, and upon these specimens the following observations were made. One 
pecuharity of S])]icena vestUa^ and that from which it derives its specific name, is a 
dense woolly covering of a dirty white or yellowish colour, which in their early state 
clothes the young perithecia, and which covering has always been considered as properly 
belonging to the Sphseria. It -consists of a dense filamentous tissue, not altogether 
unlike that which forms the green disks in the Sphseria above described, and like the 
latter tissue it produces a secondary kind of fruit, which I will presently describe. 
Before doing so, however, I must mention a striking peculiarity in the mode of growth 
of some of the specimens which came under my observation. Ordinarily the perithecia 
of Sphceria vestita are seated beneath the epidermis upon the surface of the inner bark, 
but in the above specimens the perithecia were imbedded in the substance of the bark, 
or rather they were enclosed in a sort of conceptacle formed from the bark and having 
a perforation at its apex. 
The perithecia themselves were surrounded on all sides by a dark dense mass, which 
the microscope proved to be composed entu’ely of spores having all the appearance of 
the spores figured by Coeda under the name of Steganosporimii pyriforme. The perfo- 
ration at the top of the conceptacle served as a common orifice for the escape of the 
sporidia of the Sphseria, and of what I may call the Steganosporium spores. The peri- 
thecia, which were enclosed in the conceptacles, had for the most part lost their woolly 
covering, and the conceptacles themselves were surrounded on all sides by vast numbers 
of the Steganosporium spores which had been ejected through the orifices. Fig. 15 
represents one of these latter spores, which are of a dark brown colour with a granular 
endochrome, and, when ripe, have two and sometimes three transverse septa. Now if 
the woolly covering of the perithecia be examined before it loses its pale colour, it will 
be found that the threads of which it is composed produce a number of pale-coloured 
globular bodies, bearing a strong resemblance to the immature spores of many species of 
Uredines ; and it will also be seen that these bodies by degrees lose their globular form 
and assume a pyriform or turbinate shape, shortly after which a septum is formed across 
the lower extremity. When the spore has reached this latter condition, it is impossible 
not to see that it is the young state of the dark-coloured Steganosporium spores, which 
subsequently become developed in enormous quantities, and which are afterwards found 
surrounding the perithecia, both when the latter are naked and when they are enclosed 
in conceptacles. 
A case precisely analogous to the above was noticed some time since by Messrs. 
Beekeley and Become, and was published in Hookee’s ‘ Journal of Botany,’ in which a 
well-known Stilbospora {Stilhospora macrosperma) was found growing on the outer 
surface of the perithecia of Sphceria inquinans, the Stilbospora and the Sphseria being 
both situated beneath the bark, and having a common orifice for the escape of both the 
