Coprophilous Ftingi . //. 83 
Sterile hyphae creeping, effused, dirty white ; fertile hyphae aseptate, 
erect, 3-4 mill, high, firm, 34-40 p wide, often attenuated towards the 
base, swollen at the apex into a clavate vesicle 250-350/^ long, 
80-100 /u wide; head at first white, then becoming more or less 
glaucous, densely covered with conidia ; conidia concatenate, minute, 
hyaline, elliptic with obtuse ends, 4-5 x 2-2-5 fa borne on short simple 
distinct basidia. 
Hab. — On cardboard among dung, Kew, Oct. 1901. (Distrib. — 
France, Italy, Belgium, N. America, on Fowl-dung and decaying 
substances.) 
A well-marked species, easily recognized by its long clavate head 
and its very long firm aseptate conidiophore. 
A. candidus, Link, in Willd. Gen. PI., Fung, i, 65 (1824). 
Hab. — On Bats’ dung, Kew, Nov. 1900. 
Not uncommon on decaying plant remains, &c., but not hitherto 
recorded on dung. 
Arthrobotrys superba, Corda (Figs. 53, 54). 
A. superba , Corda, Prachtfl. 43, pi. xxi (1839); Sacc. Syll. Fung, 
iv, 181 (1886). 
A. oligospora , Fresen., Beitr. Mykologie, 8, Taf. 3, ff. 1-7 
(1850-63). 
Snow-white, glistening, densely gregarious and effused, or more or 
less scattered ; fertile hyphae erect, up to 1 mill, high, simple, septate, 
smooth, 6-7 \i in diam., delicate, bearing in the upper part one to 
many (12-15) superposed whorls of conidia; conidia arising from 
minute blunt teeth on slight swellings of the conidiophore, crowded, 
one-septate, obovate or oblong, lower cell usually the smaller and 
terminating below in a minute point, 17-23x10-12 //, smooth, 
hyaline. 
Hab. — On dung of Goat, Kew, Mar. 1901 ; on Horse-dung, Epping 
Forest, Oct. 1961 {A. oligospora). (Distrib. — Germany, France, Italy, 
Belgium, on dung and damp or decaying substances, and on the earth 
amongst Fungi.) 
A. superba is, as several mycologists have remarked, a very variable 
species. In its typical form, as it occurred with us on Goats’ dung at 
Kew, and as is well shown in Corda’s figures, the Fungus develops an 
effused growth of densely crowded erect fertile hyphae, which is snow- 
white and glistening with the crowded whorled conidia. In this form, 
the whorls of conidia, which may be as many as fifteen in number, 
G 2 
