130 
SELECTED ARTICLES. 
necessary to alter its previous botanical relations, by dismiss- 
ing the former appellations, and giving a new one to the mi- 
nute plant, which is the cause of this singular production. 
From comparisons with the characters of the present little 
plant, and with those of British and foreign genera of Funga- 
ce^:, it has been found so unlike any of them, as to deserve 
being made a new genus, to which I have given the title of 
Ergotsetia:* and, after repeated examinations in the rye and 
other grasses, I have not hitherto found any material difference 
in the organization or characters of this parasite to warrantthe 
making of those belonging to different grasses into different 
species, therefore I apply the specific term abortans\ to the 
fungus found on the rye, and believe those on other grasses to 
be the same species. 
This minute plant, from its structure and habit, will be class- 
ed in the suborder of Fungaceje, Coniomycetes of Fries, and 
in the tribe of Mucedines.% 
Though many of these observations were primarily made 
with the elymus, because I had the plants in the growing state, 
yet the same experiments with the sporidia of the rye have- 
been repeated, and with the same results, and the anatomy of 
the body of the ergot in both and in other grasses, seems to 
correspond in every respect. 
This is a point which, as regards the goodness of the ergot 
of rye, is deserving mention in this place, from having found, 
in numerous instances, that the specimens have frequently 
been not much more than hollow cases, instead of being solid. 
On looking for the cause it was found that these effects were 
* From EgycoT^, Ergota and artia, origo. 
f The term applies directly to the fungus destroying the germinating 
power of the grain, and indirectly to the medicinal properties of the ergot. 
+ In Berkley's arrangement of the British Fungi, Ergotsdia will be placed 
in the suborder Hyphomycetes, and in the tribe Sepidoniei, which is com- 
posed of plants having filaments not sporidiferous ; the sporidia being 
heaped together, and lying upon the matrix, which is nearly the case with 
the parasite of the ergot, whose filaments do not often bear sporidia, or if 
so, not one-hundredth time so frequent as the sporidia develope one from 
another, forming a mass which completely invests the body of the ergot. 
