Hab. Falkland Islands; on dead stems of Rostkovia grandiflora.
Puncta irregularia suborbicularia picea nitida in culmos exsiccatos efformans. Perithecia valde depressa, demum basi squamæ instar dehiscentia. Sporæ irregulares, fusiformes, quandoque curvatæ, tenerrimæ, albæ, pellucidæ; endochromium varie partitum, non autem septatum.
A species which, examined superficially, may be passed over as Leptostroma junceum, differing merely in its more shining perithecium. The spores are, however, of a very different form, and many times larger. In that species, as published in 'British Fungi' (No. 197), and by Madame Libert (No. 260), they are extremely minute and obtuse at either extremity; the perithecium also is more closely cellular. In the specimens published by Klotzsch and Fries (in my copy at least), there is no fructification. It resembles also, externally, Leptostroma vulgare, but there is as decided a difference as in the former case between the spores.
Plate CLXIII. Fig. III.—Leptothyrium decipiens, Berk., of the natural size; 2, portion of stem of Rostkovia grandiflora, with base of peridium adhering to it:—magnified; 3, spores:—highly magnified.
10. SPHÆRONEMA, Fries.
1. Sphæronema sticticum, Berk.; minutissimum, punctiforme, innatum, atrum, nitidum, demum collapsum, sporis minutissimis ellipticis. (Tab. CLXIII. Fig. I.)
Hab. Hermite Island, Cape Horn; on dead leaves of the Deciduous Beech (Fagus Antarctica.)
Minutissimum, punctiforme, atrum, nitidum, demum collapsum, præcipue venis foliorum innatum, unde dispositionem reticulatam exhibit. Sporæ minutissimæ, sporophoris brevibus filiformibus affixæ.
Not to be confounded with Sphæria punctiformis, Pers., (Fr. Sc. Suec. No. 56), which has true asci, assuming the production published by Fries, which exactly accords with specimens gathered in Northamptonshire, to be the type of the species. Both Desmazière's (No. 984), and Mougeot's, and Nestler's (No. 662) plants appear to me quite different. Unfortunately in neither have I been able to detect fructification. In Mougeot's plant the perithecia are strongly collapsed, which is by no means the case with that of Fries; and that of Desmazière approaches Sp. maculæformis.
The genus Sphæronema is here considered as comprising such species of the genus Sphæria as have simple spores, never included in asci, such as Sp. acuta, &c.
Plate CLXIII. Fig. I.—1, Sphæronema sticticum, Berk., upon leaves of Fagus, of the natural size; 2, portion of leaf and fungus; 3, spores on their sporophores; 4, spores:—all highly magnified.
11. SPORIDESMIUM, Lk.
1. Sporidesmium adscendens, Berk., in Ann. Nat. Hist. vol. iv. p. 292. t. S. f. 1. 1810.
Hab. Falkland Islands; on the underside of Polyporus versicolor, C. Darwin, Esq.
The species is nearly allied to Sp. vagum, Nees, from which it differs merely in having constantly a single globose nucleus in each articulation, presuming that Corda's figure, published in the same year with that in the Annals of Natural History, is the plant of Nees.
12. ÆCIDIUM, Gmel.
1. Æcidium Magellanicum, Berk.; hypophyllum, totam faciem inferiorem occupans inque petiolos sparsum, rarissime epiphyllum, maculis rubellis, peridiis urceolatis elongatis, sporis pallidis irregulariter orbicularibus. (Tab. CLXIII. Fig. II.)
Hab. Strait of Magalhaens; Port Famine; on Berberis ilicifolia, Capt. King.
