A New Development of Ephelis. 
BY 
Dr. M. C. COOKE 
AND 
GEORGE MASSEE. 
With Plate IV. 
T HE genus Ephelis of Fries has throughout been involved 
in mystery. In 1849 a short diagnosis appeared in the 
‘ Summa Vegetabilium Scandinaviae,’ where it was included 
under Discomycetes, near Rhytisma , but the description did 
not determine its affinity: — 4 Perithecium (stroma) crustaceo- 
effusum, hinc inde tuberculosum, tuberculis in excipula cu- 
pularia dehiscentibus the presence of asci seems not to have 
been determined. In 1869 Berkeley included the genus in 
his Cuban Fungi as an ally of Sphaeropsis , with Fries’s original 
species, there called Ephelis mexicana \ and in 1875 another 
species was added from Ceylon as Ephelis brevis , B. & Br. 
In the Berkeley Herbarium is a specimen from Fries, inscribed 
by his own hand ‘ Ephelis typhina , Fries,’ from Mexico, and 
with it the Cuban specimens, there called Ephelis typhina , but 
described by Berkeley under the name of Ephelis mexicana . 
Undoubtedly all are the same species, and as we do not find 
any diagnosis of Ephelis typhina , the later name of Ephelis 
mexicana will stand. These specimens are stylosporous, and 
correspond with the description in Saccardo’s Sylloge, vol. iii. 
No. 3645, having spores about 25 /x long. Subsequent to the 
publication of the last-named work, Mr. Phillips 1 has appro- 
priated the genus Ephelis as an ascomycete, although there is 
no evidence that Fries intended, or suspected, anything of the 
1 Manual of British Discomycetes, p. 358. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. III. No. IX. February 1889.3 
D 
