The Fungus present in Pellia epiphylla, (L.) Corda. 
BY 
W. F. F. RIDLER. 
With eight Figures in the Text. 
M ATERIAL of Pellia epiphylla gathered from Leigh Woods, Somerset, 
in 1920 was found to harbour a fungus. The following paper 
contains an account of an investigation of the life-history of the fungus — 
which always proved to be present in material collected from the locality 
mentioned above — as well as in material obtained from the Royal Horti- 
cultural Society’s garden at Wisley, Surrey, where the plants had 
developed on humus at the base of an Osmunda regalis ; from a wood at 
Pensford, near Bristol, where it grew on a soil mainly composed of clay; 
from the Jardin Botanique de l’Etat at Brussels — this material was removed 
from the ‘Rouge Cloitre ’ near Brussels in 1914 and since that date had 
been cultivated in a cold greenhouse; from Cromer, Norfolk; Worcester; 
Leeds ; Belfast ; and the Foret des Soignes, Belgium. In the last case it 
was growing on sandy soil. With the exception noted above, the material 
was always from clay soils containing varying amounts of humus. No 
plant of Pellia epiphylla has been found in which fungal infection was 
entirely absent. 
Historical Notes. 
Examples have been noted by various authors of species of Musci 
being infested by fungal mycelia. Thus Cooke (1889) recorded the 
presence of Cladosporium epibryum on certain moss plants without giving 
exact indications of the host on which they occurred. Britton (1911) 
obtained the list of mosses which are host species for this fungus from 
Massee, to whom they had been sent by Cooke. This list consisted of 
Ulota phyllantha , Brid., Grimmia ovata , W. and M.. Grimmia Doniana , Sm., 
Encalypta rhabdocarpa , Schwgr., Bartramia pomiformis , Hedw., Hypmim 
megaptilum . Sulk, Fabronia andina , Mitt., and Bartramia Potosica, Mont. 
In 1911 Gyorffy noted the presence of Cladosporium herb arum ^ (Pers.) 
Link., on capsules of Buxbaumia veridis , Brid. Dunham (1916) found the 
spores of Pestalozzia present in a capsule of Ftinaria hygrometrica , var. 
patula , Br. and Sch. Fitzpatrick (1918) published a detailed account of the 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXXVII. No. CXLII. April, 1922.] 
