Notes . 
347 
THE WATER-MOULD THRAUSTOTHECA FOUND IN FORMOSA.— 
Although the Saprolegniaceae have been collected extensively, the genus Thrausto¬ 
theca, comprising the single species T. clavata, (de B.) Humph. (= Dictyuchus clavatus, 
de B.), has been found but rarely. After being discovered by de Bary near Strasburg, 
Germany, in 1880, the fungus was reported from Hamburg by von Minden in 1911, 
and later was found in the United States in North Carolina in 1911 by Coker and 
Hyman, and in Massachusetts in 1914 by the writer. In a discussion of its history, 
the writer 1 listed these as the only recorded findings of Thraustotheca. Later, how¬ 
ever, he encountered an article on ‘ Paddy Seedling Decay in Formosa' by Kaneyoshi 
Sawada, written in Japanese, but indicating by Latin references to Dictyuchus clavatus 
( Thraustotheca ) and by figures of the unmistakable sporangia that the species had been 
found in Formosa also. This paper, a detailed report of eighty-four pages with 
ten excellent plates, appeared in 1912 as Special Bulletin 3 of the Agricultural Experi¬ 
ment Station of the Government of Formosa. Unfortunately, however, it remained 
unnoticed outside of Japan, because it was written entirely in Japanese with no sum¬ 
mary or abstract in a more generally understood language. Mr. Sawada, however, 
has been kind enough to furnish the writer with a somewhat abridged English transla¬ 
tion of his interesting article, and from this, supplemented by additional translations of 
critical points made by Japanese friends, the following information on Thraustotheca 
in Formosa is derived. During his detailed study of Achlyaprolifera, (Nees) de Bary, 
as the cause of a serious decay of rice seedlings in Formosa, Mr. Sawada encountered 
other water-fungi, most of them growing as saprophytes on organic remains in the 
inundated seed-beds. Among these he found Thraustotheca growing on dead 
shrimp in the water of a seed-bed in the nursery at Daimokku. The material thus 
collected lacked oogonia or oospores, but showed the characteristic clavate to obovate, 
sympodially renewed sporangia which Sawada describes (p. 74) and figures (Plate X, 
Figs. 15-22). He over-emphasizes somewhat the delicacy of the sporangium wall as 
‘ very thin compared to other species ', and his statements, first that the £ sporangium is 
.rounded at the tip, lacking an apical papilla ’, and later that ‘ sometimes the spores are 
protruded slowly from the apical opening of the sporangium as in Saprolegnia and 
Achlya \ leave one in doubt as to whether he was quite clear on this important point. 
Nevertheless, from his statement that * when ripe the spore mass is protruded at any 
place through the sporangium wall, separates gradually and scatters in the water ’ it is 
1 Ann. Bot., 1918, vol. xxxii, pp. 155-73, Pis. IV and V. The writer wishes to take the 
opportunity of correcting a most unfortunate error in this paper. On p. 170 the first sentence of the 
summary should read ‘ spore limitation ’ not £ spore liberation \ The uncorrected sentence is, of course, 
in direct contradiction to that of the next paragraph of the summary and to the description in the 
body of the paper. 
