620 Howard.—-On Tnchosphaeria Sac chari, Mas see. 
obtained and stages were observed in the formation of a 
stroma. Working under tropical conditions I have ex¬ 
perienced great difficulty in preventing hanging-drops being 
washed off the cover-glass by condensation of water thereon. 
This usually happens during the first two days, after which 
the danger from this source is small. 
Next hanging-drop cultures were made in a food-material 
composed of raisin-extract containing eighteen per cent, of 
gelatine. Germination took place in one instance in twenty- 
five hours, in other cases not till forty-eight hours after 
sowing. Chlamydospores were noted in the hyphae in twelve 
days, but no stroma was observed in any hanging-drops 
when raisin-extract was used as a food-material. In flask- 
cultures, however, where this substance was employed, Melan- 
conium-stromsitSL were observed on the surface of the culture 
in twenty-nine days. 
Hanging-drop cultures were next obtained in sugar-cane 
extract containing eighteen per cent, of gelatine. The cane 
extract was obtained by boiling small pieces of cane in 
distilled water for half an hour, filtering the extract and 
sterilizing in the usual way. When pieces of cane were 
allowed to soak in water for more than a day it was found 
that the development of Bacteria rendered the juice so acid 
that neither Melanconium -spores nor vigorous' mycelium 
from other cultures would grow in such a substratum. A 
hanging-drop containing a single s]~ore, which germinated in 
thirty-two hours, was obtained. A long colourless hypha 
was developed which at length branched. In three days 
the mycelium began coiling up at the point where this 
branching took place, and from the coil long unseptate 
hyphae, full of brilliant fine-grained homogeneous protoplasm, 
radiated in all directions and after a time branched pro¬ 
fusely. Subsequent observations showed that these long 
hyphae were feeders for the coil. The coil rapidly increased 
in complexity and in five days a stroma was formed. At 
this point a second smaller stroma was noted in the elliptic- 
ally-shaped drop, the two being placed approximately at 
