Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/171

 NEW OR CRITICAL FUNGI. 149 septate, 32-35 x 8-9 /a ; parapbyses numerous, very slender, septate, corymbosely branched at the apex, the tips slightly thickened and tinged green. On soft decayed wood. Bethlehem, United States (Schweinitz). The present very fine and distinct species is amongst the Schweinitzian species in Herb. Berk., Kew, with the label ** Beth- lehem ; herb, bchweinitz," but without a name by Schweinitz. On the other hand, the name '^ Peziza virescens T' in Berkeley's writing is on the paper on which the specimen is mounted. Pyrenopeziza Ellisii Mass. (PL 357, figs. 6 & 7). Scattered or gregarious, erumpent, at first subglobose and closed, then ex- panded, thin and soft, blackish grey, glabrous, f-| mm. diameter ; externally consisting of irregularly polygonous cells 9-12 fi diameter, which have a tendency to become slightly elongated and parallel to form the minutely fimbriate margin, dark brown ; within the outer dark-coloured marginal cells is a sUghtly longer series of hyaline hyphae, which give to the margin a whitish appearance; asci clavate, apex narrowed and becoming blue with iodine, base narrowed into a long, slender pedicel, usually curved, 90-100 x 10-12 /x ; spores 8, 2-seriate, hyaline, continuous, smooth, cylindrical, ends obtuse, usually very slightly curved and 2-guttulate, 14-16 x 3*5-4 /x ; parapbyses scanty, cylindrical, septate, about 3 fx thick. Peziza denigrata Kunze in EUis, N. Amer. Fung, no. 565. On dead culms of Festuca tenella. Newfield, New Jersey, U.S.A. {Ellis). Superficially resembling Niptera denigrata J. Kunze, Fung. Sel. no. 180 (= Pyrenopeziza denigrata Rehm, Asc. no. 353) ; Krypt.- Flora, Disc. pi. 631, figs. 1-5, p. 605 ; Sacc. Syll. no. 1518. P. denigrata differs from the present species in having the asci shorter, cylindric-oblong, abruptly narrowed below into a very short pedicel ; parapbyses numerous, tips thickened, and the ex- ternal cells of the excipulum smaller. Spragueola Mass. (PI. 357, figs. 8 & 9). Ascophore sub- globose, irregularly nodulose, glabrous, sessile, solid, hymenium covering the entire surface; asci cylindric-clavate, apex slightly truncate, the pore becoming blue with iodine; spores 8, 1-seriate, continuous, hyaline, smooth, elliptical; parapbyses slender, septate; hypothecium formed of slender, hyaline, very densely interlaced hyphae, which become thicker, much branched, aseptate, and more loosely interwoven at the centre of the ascophore. Mitrula Berk. Grev. iii. 149. As to what Spathularia crispata Fr. really is, we shall never know, as it has not been described. In first mentioning the name — Summ. Veg. Scand. 347 (1846) — Fries, in contrasting it with S. flavida, says, "A priori distiuctissima ! " Fuckel accepts as the species of Fries a Spathularia differing from S. flavida m having slightly different spores, measuring 48 x 3 /x, whereas his measure- ments for S. flavida are 72 x 2 ^ (Symb. Myc. 332). Berkeley, on the other hand, considered the New England fungus communicated by Sprague to represent S, crispata of Fries, but, observing that the