NOMAD FUNGI. 
‘2() 
far behind their brethren of the Continent. We are now concerned 
with another reform as pressing, and of course as hesitatingly accepted 
on this side of the Channel, and it is safe to say that one still more 
important will have to be made in the not distant future. 
But, though most of these six classes appear to require revision, 
there is not one which contains such a heterogeneous collection of 
odds and ends as the Coniomycetes. It may truly be said that the 
only point in which they agree is in the vast predominance of the 
spores over the other parts of the fungus In any other point of view 
they are widely and irreconcilably unlike. Some produce enormous 
quantities of minute spermatiform spores in receptacles, more or less 
perfectly formed, in or upon dead or dying leaves and stems, or under¬ 
neath the bark of twigs and branches, as, e.fj., that army of obscure 
species which form little dark sjjots on fading leaves, and which are 
probably all mere phases in the life-history of a so-called higher 
fungus, known under another name. Others produce their spores 
freely on the outer surface of dead stalks, bark, and leaves; such as 
the common Torula, which—I may be excused for reminding you— 
has nothing to do with what a mistaken analogy led us formerly to 
call the Torula or yeast-plant, and which is now called Saccharomyces. 
This latter does not belong to the Coniomycetes.* The third and 
last division—the one with which we have now to deal—grows upon 
living plants, and includes the majority of those species which are 
usually known under the name of leaf-fungi. It was divided into 
three orders—the Pucciniacei, the Caeomacei, and the CEcidiacei; and 
the following genera :— 
PUCCINIACEI. 
Xenodochufe. Triphragmium. Gymnosporangium. 
Phragmidium. Puccinia. Podisoma. 
Tilletia. 
Ustilago. 
Thecaphora. 
Tuburcinia. 
Iloestelia, 
Peridermium. 
C^OMACEI. 
Urocystis. 
Uromyces. 
Coleosporium. 
Melampsora. 
(ECIDIACEI. 
Qicidium. 
Endophyllum. 
Cystopus. 
Uredo. 
Trichobasis. 
Lecythea, 
Graphiola. 
The Pucciniacei or “Brands” were distinguished by having com¬ 
pound spores—that is, spores divided by septa into two or more cells ; 
the Caeomacei or “ Smuts and Rusts” were distinguished by the free 
spores being mostly simple or one-celled; while the (Ecidiacei or 
“Cluster-cups” were characterised by their simple spores being con¬ 
tained in a cellular envelope or per/d/a;;t of various forms. A beauti¬ 
fully simple plan, well adapted for the purpose which it has hitherto 
served and will continue to serve, as a kind of Linnean system in 
The f^roup of the Torulacei should be absorbed aiiionp; the Hyphoniyeetes. 
into wliich it passes insensibly. There will then be no Coniomycetes left." 
