ptic or ovate
sporidia are common, as are those of the peculiar form which may be
termed sausage-shaped. These are either hyaline or coloured of some
shade of brown. Coloured sporidia of this kind are common in _Xylaria_
and _Hypoxylon_, as well as in certain species of the section
_Superficiales_. Coloured sporidia are often large and beautiful: they
are mostly of an elongated, elliptical form, or fusiform. As
noteworthy may be mentioned the sporidia of _Melanconis lanciformis_,
those of _Valsa profusa_, and some species of _Massaria_, the latter
being at first invested with a hyaline coat. Some coloured sporidia
have hyaline appendages at each extremity, as in _Melanconis
Berkeleii_, and an allied species, _Melanconis bicornis_, from the
United States, also some dung _Sphaeriae_, as _S. fimiseda_, included
under the proposed genus _Sordaria_.[E] Hyaline sporidia occasionally
exhibit a delicate bristle-like appendage at each extremity, as in the
_Valsa thelebola_, or with two additional cilia at the central
constriction, as in _Valsa taleola_. A peculiar form of sporidium is
present in certain species of _Sphaeria_ found on dung, for which the
generic name of _Sporormia_ has been proposed, in which the sporidium
(as in _Perisporium vulgare_) consists of four coloured ovate joints,
which ultimately separate. Multiseptate fenestrate sporidia are not
uncommon in _Cucurbitaria_ and _Pleospora_, as well as in _Valsa
fenestrata_ and some other species. In the North American _Sphaeria
putaminum_ the sporidia are extraordinarily large.

[Illustration: FIG. 68.--Ascus and sporidia of _Hypocrea_.]

[Illustration: FIG. 69.--Sporidium of _Sphaeria ulnaspora_.]

[Illustration: FIG. 70.--Sporidia of _Valsa profusa_ (Currey).]

[Illustration: FIG. 71.--Sporidia of _Massaria foedans_. x 400.]

[Illustration: FIG. 72.--Sporidium of _Melanconis bicornis_, Cooke.]

[Illustration: FIG. 73.--Caudate sporidia of _Sphaeria fimiseda_.]

[Illustration: FIG. 74.--Sporidia of _Valsa thelebola_.]

[Illustration: FIG. 75.--Sporidia of _Valsa taleola_. x 400.]

[Illustration: FIG. 76.--Sporidium of _Sporormia intermedia_.]

[Illustration: FIG. 77.--Asci and sporidia of _Sphaeria_ (_Pleospora_)
_herbarum_.]

[Illustration: FIG. 78.--Sporidium of _Sphaeria putaminum_. x 400.]

The dissemination of the sporidia may, from identity of structure in
the perithecium, be deemed to follow a like method in all. When
mature, they are in a great me