356 
CRYPTOGAMIA. FUNGI. Sphjeria. 
Ret. se'getum. Brown blacky parasitical, fibrous witbin. 
Bull. 472. 2. 
This is one kind of Smut, so frequently found upon the ears of different 
sorts of growing- corn, and also upon grasses. It consists of very minute 
egg-shaped stemless capsules, at first white, but the thin white coat soon 
bursting, it pours out a quantity of brown black powder, mixed with 
wool-like fibres. Aug.* 
(Smut Reticulahia. Ret. segetum. Bull. Purt. Uredo segetum. Pers. 
Hook. E.) 
SPHiE'RIA.T Fructifications mostly spherical, opening at 
the top ; whilst young filled with jelly, (in 
which the seeds are immersed. E.) when old, 
with a blackish powder (the ripened seeds, 
E.) 
Obs. Grows on the bark or wood of other plants. Capsules often immersed, 
so that their orifices only are visible. 
(1) With a Stem. 
(Sph. puncta'ta. Pezizaeform, whitish, disk truncated, spherules scat¬ 
tered, punctiform, black. 
Bull. 252— Sowerhy 54— Bolt. 127.2— FI. Dan. 288. 
Seeds contained in pores, from whence they are ejected Avith an elastic 
force. Gled. in Linn. Suec. n. 1275. Stem dark grey to black, a quarter 
to half an inch high, tapering downwards. Pileus an expansion of the 
stem, concave, white, Avith black dots, (immersed seeds. Linn.) a quarter 
to three quarters of an inch diameter. Substance dry, tough, and elastic. 
Bull. Bolt. 
Dotted Sph.eria. Peziza punctata. Linn. Lightf. With, to Ed. 7. Sph. 
punctata. SoAverby. Sph. por'onia. Pers. Hook. On horse and coav 
dung, and dry dunghills. Very common about Bungay. Mr. Woodward. 
Winter and Spring. Bolt. E.) 
Sppi. entomorrhi'za, Head roundish, brown, supported on a stem. 
Dicks. 22. 
Dicks. 3. 3. 
Stem single or double, somewhat compressed, tAvo inches high and upwards. 
Head spherical, granulated on the surface. Dicks. The mode of fruc¬ 
tification does not appear to have been sufficiently attended to. Its habit 
speaks it to be a Mucor. 
* (Particularly injurious to Avheat crops by converting the grain into black dust, 
knoAvn by the name of hr and , dust brand , smut, burnt corn , &c. Hook. In an 
ingenious paper in the Linn. Tr. vol. 5. the Rev. W. Kirby has endeavoured to throw 
additional light on this interesting topic, and seems to have proved the different kinds of 
blights to be principally occasioned by several minute parasitic Fungi, and that the 
evil may be eradicated by subjecting the seed to proper dressings, as was 1 ' ing with spring 
Avater, slaking Avith lime, &c. Vid. this subject more fully explained under the genus 
Uredo. The smut has lately been used medicinally. Med. and Phys. Journ. v. 37- E«) 
*J* (From the spherical form of the fructification. E.) 
