82 
Journal of Mycology 
[Vol. 9 
rufescens D. & H. on Pedicularis semibarbata, Aecidium col- 
linsise Ell. & Ev. on Collinsia bicolor and an Aecidium (species 
as yet undertermined) on Pentstemon confertus. The two 
species of Puccinia present decidedly different characters from 
those of the species to which the snapdragon disease is due and it 
is very improbable that the latter is correlated with either of 
the two Aecidia. The first mentioned species has been found but 
once in the Bay Region and then in very small amounts, the lat¬ 
ter is known only from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Further 
than this, badly infected snapdragon plants have been placed in 
close proximity to patches of various species of Collinsia, grow¬ 
ing in the Botanic Garden of the University of California, for two 
seasons but the Aecidium has never appeared. Attempts to infect 
various other species of scrophulariaceous genera with the dis¬ 
ease have been successful in three instances only. During the 
past season it was found that plants of the native Antirrhinum 
vagans, grown from seed, were attacked with nearly the same 
degree of destructiveness as the cultivated species. Also plants 
of Linaria reticulata and L. amethystina were attacked by the dis¬ 
ease, but to a much less degree than the other species. No dif¬ 
ferences could be detected in the characters of the fungus grown 
on the four different host plants. Presumably then the snap¬ 
dragon rust originated on the wild form of Antirrhinum but thus 
far the disease has never been found on plants growing spon¬ 
taneously though diligent search has been made for it whenever 
the opportunity was offered. The only alternative is to assume 
that it is a case of adaption of a species from a host plant beleng- 
ing to a different order. The destructive character of the disease 
would render it wise to guard against introducing it into other 
regions. 
A NEW SPECIES OF SIROTHECIUM. 
A. P. MORGAN. 
In the Symbolae ad Mycologiam XX, p. 105, 1887, Karsten 
founded a new genus Sirothecium upon a single species, see 
Saccardo, Sylloge X, p. 270. This genus is more than merely 
a “phseosporous Sirococcusit is probably more closely re¬ 
lated to certain species of Hormococcus or Trullula. The fol¬ 
lowing species rests well in Karsten’s new genus. 
Sirothecium nigrum Morgan sp. nov.—Perithecia super¬ 
ficial, gregarious, subglobose, astomous, glabrous, black; the wall 
thin and fragile, dehiscing irregularly; the enclosed mass of 
spores brown. The hyphae wholly abjointed into long slender, 
