a Fungus causing a Disease of the Sugar-cane. 529 
perithecia found on the decayed cane ; two examples of the 
initial stage of a perithecium were also found. The culture 
was placed under favourable conditions for the further 
formation of perithecia, but unfortunately soon became 
covered with Penicillium and other growths, and gave no 
further results. 
The earliest stage in the formation of a perithecium observed 
consisted of the fundamental coil, forming the apex of a short 
lateral branch 4 /x thick ; the coiled portion was provided with 
several transverse septa ; there was no trace of an archicarp — 
Woronin’s hypha — within the coil. 
The mature perithecium is broadly ovate and furnished 
with a minute pore or ostiolum at the apex, blackish brown 
in colour, and sparsely clothed with long, septate, tapering, 
dark brown, rigid hairs ; numerous brown, septate hyphae 
spring from the basal portion of the perithecium, forming 
a densely interwoven subiculum (Fig. 17); asci cylindrical, 
narrowed at the base into a curved pedicel ; spores 8, 
obliquely uniseriate, hyaline, continuous, elliptic-oblong, 
ends obtuse, 8 — 9 x 4 /x ; paraphyses absent (Fig. 19). 
Expt. I. — Spores obtained from the mature perithecia 
found on the decayed cane germinated tardily in a hanging 
drop of sugar-cane extract : these were placed respectively 
on the base of a broken-off lateral shoot, and on the remains 
of a dead leaf-base of sugar-cane, but unfortunately no result 
followed ; hence it is not known whether the ascigerous fruit 
gives origin to the Melanconium stage as is presumably the 
case. 
Experiments proved that macroconidia of the Tricho- 
sphaeria , sown on very young leaves of bamboo, germinated 
and formed hyphae in the tissues ; the red coloration, so 
characteristic of the presence of the parasite in the sugar-cane, 
was not present. 
Finally, it was observed that when a cane was attacked 
by both Trichosphaeria and the beetle known as the ‘ shot- 
borer ’ (. Xyleborus perforans , Wall.), the numerous pellets of 
excrementa present in the burrows of the latter were found 
