Notes . 
1 16 
a short diagnosis. I would only mention in addition that the affinities of Stalice 
Perezii and Statice Preauxii lie evidently with Statice arborea, with which the 
former at least shares the beautiful blue of its large and dense panicles. They can, 
however, be easily distinguished by the peculiar shape of their leaves. This is 
already seen in the remarkably glaucous seedling plants which were raised at Kew 
from seed communicated by Dr. Perez. 
Statice Perezii (sp. nov.), habitu Staticae Preauxii simillima, praesertim ob folia 
longe petiolata late triangulari-vel rhomboideo-ovata basi saepe truncata, sed 
petiolis basi utrinque in auriculum brevem triangularem productis, inflorescentiae 
ramulis pubescentibus, bracteis ad ramulorum bases sitis subulato-caudatis ciliatis et 
calyce pubescente distincta. 
OTTO STAPF. 
A PRELIMINARY NOTE ON SCLEROCYSTIS COREMIOIDES, B. re 
Br. — Sclerocystis is one- of the new genera instituted by Berkeley and Broome 
from Ceylon specimens. The characters of the genus are ‘ Capitulum globosum, 
tomentosum; stipes cylindricus : flocci compositi : cysti elliptici;’ and the species 
‘ looks at first like a Coremium ; head globose, hard, and compact ; flocci rigid, 
compound ; cysts elliptic, slightly rugose, sometimes giving out in every direction 
soft hairs.’ The authors add, ‘ a very singular plant, of which unfortunately the real 
nature of the fruit is not apparent.’ The genus does not seem to have been 
rediscovered: indeed, it is scarcely probable that anything concerning the real nature 
of the fungus would ever be deduced from the description. Saccardo follows 
Berkeley and Broome’s arrangement and includes it among the Mucorineae : Schroter 
(Engler-Prantl, Pflanzenfamilien) does not mention it. 
Fortunately there is a specimen in the Peradeniya herbarium, and it is fairly 
abundant in wet weather at Peradeniya. From these it can be deduced that 
Berkeley’s unnamed figures (Jour. Linn. Soc. Bot. 14 (1875), tab. 10, f. 56) are 
intended to represent these species, and are not a continuation of the so-called 
Eurotium diplocystis (fig. 55): a shows how Berkeley thought the ‘cyst’ grew at the 
top of a stalk, c shows the ‘ cyst ’ covered with radiating hairs, and b shows the 
‘ cyst ’ in a far more natural position, resting on strands of mycelium. 
These cysts are small sclerotia, about a millimetre in diameter. They are pro- 
duced on a white mycelium which spreads more or less in coarse strands over 
decaying leaves, &c. They are at first white, and then brown, looking when massed 
together exactly like a sessile Chondrioderma. The sclerotia are produced anywhere 
along the course of a strand, and are at first widely scattered, but ultimately by 
the copious growth of others they are densely crowded. The mycelium then 
disappears, leaving the sclerotia free. This species is parasitic, and kills out 
Caladium , Colocasia , and artichoke. 
Berkeley and Broome’s specimen is immature : the developing sclerotia are 
white, and there is some mycelium present. Evidently when they saw a sclerotium 
connected with its mycelial strand, they imagined that the latter was a stalk which 
had been pressed flat in drying ; the soft hairs radiating from a ‘ cyst ’ are the broken 
ends of the hyphae which have gone to form the sclerotium. Th waites 1014, which 
