ill at some not very distant
period be traced as the conidia of different species of ascomycetous
fungi. The same fate may also await other allied genera, but until
this association is established, they must keep the rank and position
which has been assigned to them.

Another form of dualism, differing somewhat in character from the
foregoing, finds illustration in the sphaeriaceous genus _Melanconis_,
of Tulasne, in which the free spores are still called conidia, though
in most instances produced in a sort of spurious conceptaculum, or
borne on short threads from a kind of cushion-shaped stroma. In the
_Melanconis stilbostoma_,[R] there are three forms, one of slender
minute bodies, oozing out in the form of yellow tendrils, which may be
spermatia, formerly called _Nemaspora crocea_. Then there are the oval
brown or olive brown conidia, which are at first covered, then oozing
out in a black pasty mass, formerly _Melanconium bicolor_, and finally
the sporidia in asci of _Sphaeria stilbostoma_, Fries. In _Melanconis
Berkeleii_, Tul., the conidia are quadrilocular, previously known as
_Stilbospora macrosperma_, B. and Br. In a closely-allied species from
North America, _Melanconis bicornis_, Cooke, the appendiculate
sporidia are similar, and the conidia would also appear to partake of
the character of _Stilbospora_. We may remark here that we have seen a
brown mould, probably an undescribed species of _Dematiei_, growing in
definite patches around the openings in birch bark caused by the
crumpent ostiola of the perithecia of _Melanconis stilbostoma_, from
the United States.

In _Melanconis lanciformis_,[S] Tul., there are, it would appear,
four forms of fruit. One of these consists of conidia, characterized
by Corda as _Coryneum disciforme_.[T] Stylospores, which are also
figured by Corda under the name of _Coniothecium betulinum_;
pycnidia,[U] first discovered by Berkeley and Broome, and named by
them _Hendersonia polycystis_;[V] and the ascophorous fruits which
constituted the _Sphaeria lanciformis_ of Fries. Mr. Currey indicated
_Hendersonia polycystis_, B. and Br., as a form of fruit of this
species in a communication to the Royal Society in 1857.[W] He says
this plant grows upon birch, and is in perfection in very moist
weather, when it may be recognized by the large black soft
gelatinous protuberances on the bark, formed by spores escaping and
depositing themselves upon and about the apex of the perithecium.
This