STUDIES OF COPROPHILOUS ASCOMYGETES: IV. TRIPTEROSPORA, A NEW CLEISTOCARPOUS GENUS IN A NEW FAMILY

A new family Tripterosporaceae is introduced by the description of three species of a new genus, Tripterospora, similar in several characteristics to Podospora (Sordaria) but clearly separable by the production of globose, non-ostiolate ascocarps and of ascospores which lack gelatinous secondary appendages and sheaths. In T. longicaudata Cain sp. nov., the type of the genus, and in T. brevicaudata Cain sp. nov., early development of the ascocarp is seen to be from a coiled and twisted ascogonium as in many members of the Ascohymeniales, with the ascogonia scattered on the aerial mycelium. Ascospores in all three species are two-celled, the upper cell dark and ellipsoid with a circular germ pore at the apex, the lower cell hyaline. Descriptions and illustrations are given for the known species: T. longicaudata, isolated in pure culture from dung and from swiss chard plants in Ontario; T. brevicaudata, also observed only in pure culture, obtained from a living branch of yellow birch in Connecticut, and from tomato seed in Ontario; and the third, described by Griffiths as Pleurage erostrata, collected on dung in Ontario and Manitoba.