OF CEETAIN SPH^EIACEOUS FUNGI. 
549 
composed of multitudes of spores of all sizes and shapes, sometimes strung together in 
moniliform rows, sometimes united together in a tabular form, presenting altogether a 
most irregular appearance. It is probable, indeed there can be little doubt, that the 
mon ilif orm rows of spores are the extremities of fructifying threads proceeding from 
the mycelium, and upon the point of breaking up into spores. Until lately I had 
always found the black patches of Coniothecium unconnected with any other sort of 
fungoid growth ; but in some specimens which I met with during the last summer 
(1856), I found upon stripping off the epidermis of the Willow branch, that the Conio- 
thecium w'as in immediate connexion with a perithecium which lay buried beneath the 
outer bark of the Willow. Upon extracting the perithecium the Coniothecium con- 
tinued adherent to it, the threads of the latter projecting from the apex of the perithe- 
cium, and giving it the appearance of being crowned with a little brush. The question 
then arose, whether the Coniothecium really belonged to the perithecium, or whether it 
was merely parasitical upon it, and I satisfied myself that the former was the case ; for 
upon examining the perithecium with the microscope, there was no trace to be seen of 
any threads traversing its outer surface, and that being the case, the only other conclu- 
sion in accordance with the facts was, that the threads of the Coniothecium were in 
connexion with and formed a continuation of the threads constituting the lining of the 
perithecium. 
In this instance most of the perithecia had nothing in their interior but a tangled 
mass of colourless filamentous tissue, but one or two of them contained a number of 
spores not enclosed in asci, but intermixed irregularly with the filamentous tissue. 
The spores were colourless, subelhptical, slightly acuminate at each end, and con- 
stricted in the middle with a single central septum. It could hardly be doubted that 
the perithecia belonged to some species of Sphceria of which the free spores mighi? either 
be an imperfect or stylosporous state of fruit, or normal sporidia set free by the absorp- 
tion of the asci. Since then, I have had the satisfaction of finding the Coniothecium 
and the Sphseria connected in the same manner, the latter being in perfect fruit, and 
proUng to be, as might almost have been anticipated, 8])]iceria salicina, Fees. The asci 
and sporidia of this Sphseria are shown in fig. 19, Plate XXV. The mean length of the 
sporidia is of an inch. 
There is another species of Coniothecium almost as common as the last, known by 
the name of Coniothecium hetulinum, and which is to be found upon twigs and small 
branches of Birch. It bears a strong resemblance to Coniothecium Amentacearum, and 
I have some grounds for supposing that, like that species, it is a conidioid form of fruit 
of a Sphseria [Sphceria landformis) which is not uncommon in this country upon Birch. 
I have not yet been able to prove satisfactorily the connexion between the two, but 
further observation may possibly establish it. 
In the plants above described, the two forms of fruit, assuming them to arise from 
the same mycelium, must be considered as essentially distinct, that is, the secondary 
form has no further connexion with the normal fructification, than the fact of being 
MDCCCLVII. 4 c 
