172 
ON A NEW PARASITIC PLANT. 
by a loose white substance, upon which black spots gradually make their appear¬ 
ance, without, however, deriving any covering from the cuticle; these being 
elevated upon an unjointed stipe, in the form of a cylindrical capitulum, and 
covered by an adventitious tissue, probably from the receptacle, slowly enlarge, 
burst, and shed their soot-black sporidia, to take root elsewhere, only waiting for 
the presence of a fit soil on which to alight and grow, leaving the stalks and 
collapsed peridiola remaining. 
In the accompanying sketches, the lowest (Fig. 7) shows the natural size of 
the fruit, with the plants in situ. The upper (Figs. 1 to 6) are magnified views 
of the same Fungi, in various stages of their growth, with the references under¬ 
neath the plate. 
That this parasitic plant belongs to the class Cryptogamia , can scarcely be 
doubted, since it partakes of the characters of the Mucedinece and Mucorinece , 
with the former by the loose and evanescent texture of the flocci of the receptacle, 
with which, in the early stage, the sporangia are covered, and with the latter 
by the terminal cellules and filaments dilating so as to form peridiola, which are 
simple and free, and contain the sporidia within them, when mature to burst 
through and be dispersed. 
The latter section, however, although it answers neither to the Acremoniacece , 
Stilbiace<B , nor Mucoracece , is on the whole the most likely, and may without 
hesitation be made to include it. 
Hypodermii are out of the question, because they have the sporidia unconnected 
by any common receptacle, and because these parts are naked; consequently, 
although some of the physical qualities are similar, we cannot classify it with 
Spilocce , so common upon fruit in our own temperate climate. 
The origin of all these parasites can be distinctly traced to the stomata, where 
probably they take root from the moisture exuding thence, as in some which I 
possess, and which were previously well dried in the sun, no such growth took 
place; nor have they yet commenced, although in precisely similar situations 
with others which still continue to vegetate. 
Meagre as are the details hitherto collected, we yet know sufficient upon this 
point to prove that most of the tropical Fungi at least differ from the European 
species. Some indeed are identical; but the majority are specifically distinct. 
At all events this appears to be the case as far as we are aware; for so little have 
they hitherto been studied in these regions, and so scarce are they near the 
Equator, that the subject is involved in no small obscurity. 
Bombay , June , 1837. 
