The sporidia in _Hysterium_ proper are usually coloured, often multiseptate, sometimes fenestrate, and occasionally of considerable size. There is no evidence that the sporidia are ever excluded in the same manner as in _Peziza_, the lips closing over the disc so much as to prevent this. The diffusion of the sporidia probably depends on the dissolution of the asci, and hence they will not be widely dispersed, unless, perhaps, by the action of rain. In _Tympanis_, asci of two kinds have been observed in some species; one kind containing an indefinite number of very minute bodies resembling spermatia, and the other octosporous, containing sporidia of the usual type. The _Sphæriacei_ include an almost infinite variety in the form and character of the sporidia. Some of these are indefinite in the number contained in an ascus, although the majority are eight, and a few less. In the genera _Torrubia_ and _Hypocrea_ the structure differs somewhat from other groups, inasmuch as in the former the long thread-like sporidia break up into short joints, and in the latter the ascus contains sixteen subglobose or subquadrate sporidia. Other species contain linear sporidia, which are often the length of the ascus, and may either be simple or septate. In _Sphæria ulnaspora_ the sporidia are abruptly bent at the second joint. Shorter fusiform sporidia are by no means uncommon, varying in the number of septa, and in constriction at the joints in different species. Elliptic 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 _Sphæriæ_, 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 _Sphæria_ 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 _Sphæria