Notes. 
5io 
A NEW CORDYCEPS. — In the examination of the large collection 
of Ferns recently made for the West India Fauna and Flora Com- 
mittee of the British Association by Mr. R. V. Sherring in the island 
of Grenada, the dried remains of a species of ant were observed to 
be attached to a fern-frond. On these remains there was growing 
what proved to be a new species of Cordyceps. 
Cordyceps Sherringii , Mass., sp. nov. Stipite flexuoso, pallide 
ochraceo, 1 cm. alt., 1 mm. cr., capitulo globoso, ochraceo, 2 mm. 
diam., peritheciis prominulis granuloso ; ascis cylindraceis, 80x7^; 
sporae filiformes 60 x 1*5 /a, utrinque acutiusculae, hyalinae, quinque- 
septatae. (See Woodcut 4, Figs. 2-6.) 
Gregarious on an ant, springing from various parts of the body, 
most firmly attached to the frond of a fern by a dense mass of pale 
ochraceous mycelium. Allied to Cordyceps myrmecophila , Cesati, 
but quite distinct in the globose head and the constantly 5-septate 
spores. 
Grenada. Coll. R. V. Sherring, F.L.S. 
The present species belongs to one of a small group of genera 
characterised by having exceedingly minute, needle-shaped spores, and 
more especially by being true parasites on living plants or animals. 
The members of the above-mentioned generic group of fungi are 
morphologically closely allied : in fact so close is the agreement that 
the perithecia, asci, and spores are almost indistinguishable in the 
species belonging to the various genera, and the modifications met 
with appear, so far as can be ascertained, to be solely in connection 
with spore-diffusion. The species of all the genera have the perithecia 
or spore-producing structures immersed in a portion of the fungus 
called the stroma. The spores when mature escape from the perithecia 
into the air. 
In the genera Oomyces and Epichloe the stroma is thin and crust- 
like on the leaves and stems of living grasses; no conidial form 
of reproduction is known. In Claviceps — which leads up to the fully- 
evolved structure for securing spore-dissemination met with in Cor- 
dyceps — the species are parasitic on the fruit of various grasses : the 
stroma, known as ‘ ergot ' in one species, first produces a conidial 
form of reproduction, and afterwards bears the perfect ascigerous 
form, the head bearing the perithecia being supported on a more 
or less elongated stalk. Finally, in Cordyceps the species, with two 
exceptions that are parasitic on fungi, are parasitic on living 
