345 
Copropkilous Fungi. 
place of the layer of mucilage which surrounds the spores of most 
species of Delitschia . On account of this difference the question has 
been raised as to whether these two species can be placed in the 
genus 'Delitschia. There seems, however, every reason for doing so 
when we remember that we find in the related genus Sordaria certain 
species (S. macrospora, S.fimicola , &c.) with spores surrounded by a layer 
of mucilage, while other species have one or two caudate appendages to 
their spores. Mouton ( 1 . c.) observes of the spores of D. insignis , 
after describing them as 4 medio septata,’ — f normunquam ad quartam 
partem inferiorem tenuiter (spurie?) septata/ In our specimens, 
however, the only septum observed was at the middle, where the spore 
is much constricted. At this place the spore, at maturity, falls readily 
into two halves, each of which may for a little time retain its tail, but 
the latter finally becomes completely absorbed, and each half of the 
spore appears then as a more or less elliptical cell. 
D. Winter!, Plowr. (Fig. 22). 
D. Winteri , Plowr., in Grevill. ii, 188, Tab. XXV, f. 1 (1874) ; Wint . 
in Hedwigia, xiii, 52, f. 3 (1874) ; Sacc. Syll. Fung, i, 734 (1882). 
Hah. — On Rabbit-dung, Reigate, England, Nov. 1900. (Distrib. — 
England, N. Italy, Belgium, on dung of Rabbit, Hare, Cow, and 
Sheep.) 
This species does not seem to have been hitherto met with in 
England, since it was originally discovered by Plowright at King’s 
Lynn, Norfolk, in 1873. The following diagnosis is drawn up from 
our specimens: Perithecia scattered, almost completely immersed, up 
to 1 mm. high, J— | mm. broad, glabrous, basal part ovate-globose, 
olivaceous, narrowed upwards into a thick bluntly conical blackish 
brown neck, cells of perithecial wall 10-15 wide ; asci large, elongate- 
cylindrical, about 500 n long and 40-45 /x wide, narrowed below into 
a short stalk, 8-spored ; spores obliquely uniseriate, broadly oblong, 
obtuse at both ends, slightly constricted at the septum, opaque, dark- 
fuscous, 50-60 x 25-28 fx, surrounded by a layer of mucilage. D. 
Winteri agrees so closely in nearly all its characters with D. Auers- 
waldii } FckL, that it is possible that the two are not specifically dis- 
tinct. In both we find the large spores (variable in length), slightly 
constricted at the septum, and bluntish at the ends, the only difference 
being that in D. Winteri the spores are from 25-28 ^ wide, while in 
D. Auerswaldii, judging from the examples in FckL, Fung. Rhen. 
2034, they appear to average about 20^. It must be mentioned, 
