Fig. 841.
In Cuba I made abundant collections of this species. It grew in patches from the thin bark, usually on the branches of a dead tree. I do not know the name of the tree, but I think it was only on one kind, one of the few softwood trees of Cuba. Camillea Sagraena is undoubtedly a common species in the American tropics. It has never been well described, and the white tissue of the interior lower half, which is a very rare occurrence in similar black, carbonous plants, has never been noted. A "new genus" might be based on this feature. It is quite fragile and the broken bases as shown (Fig. 839) are often all that remain of it when old. Camillea surinamensis as named by Berkeley from specimens from Surinam, type at Kew, is exactly the same species. Berkeley does not record it from Cuba, but from Nicaragua, and the specimen is supposed to be illustrated by Ellis in his plate 38. It may have been the plant, but if so, it was so inaccurately drawn that it would never be recognized. In addition to my abundant collections from Cuba, I have a scanty collection also from Cuba from E. B. Sterling.
 Fig. 844. |  Fig. 845. |
| Camillea Bomba. Fig. 844 on bark; Fig. 845 on hard wood. | |
CAMIILLEA BOMBA (Figs. 844, 845).—Plants globose, sessile, 4-6 mm. in diameter, black, smooth, without any disc. Dehiscing by irregular fracture. Stroma hollow on the interior (Fig. 846 ×6) filled with a brown powder, composed of spores mixed with abundant hyphae remnants of the perithecia and asci. Spores 6-7 × 10-12, elliptical, pale colored.
Fig. 846.
This seems to be a frequent species in tropical America. I collected it in Cuba and have specimens from Miss Barrett, Jamaica, and L. J. K. Brace, Bahamas. The latter specimens grew erumpent from thin bark, and the broken bark forms a kind of cup at the base of the stroma. A thin, black mycelial stroma underlies the bark. Those I collected in Cuba were somewhat larger, and more irregular. Some grew in same manner, erumpent from thin bark and the broken bark forms a kind of cup at the base of the stroma, others on the naked, hard wood and grew more compact. In the latter case the black stroma at the base was thicker and more in evidence. There is no question but that Camillea Bomba is cogeneric with Camillea Sagraena, but the gleba of the latter consists almost entirely of spores, while in the former there is considerably more hyphae remnants than spores.
CAMILLEA GLOBOSA (Fig. 847).—Plants densely caespitose, sessile, globose, black, smooth. 7-8 mm. in diameter. Opening by irregular fracture. Stroma hollow, filled with a brown mass of spores and hyphae remnants. Spores elliptical.
Léveillé named this from a specimen from Tolima, Columbia, South America. The type Fig. 847 is all than is known to me. Léveillé spins a long story about it having spores borne on filaments, merely a wrong deduction, I think, from his having found filaments (of the perithecia walls?) mixed with the spores. Saccardo, who evidently did not take much stock in Léveillé's story, omitted the species, suggesting that it was a form of Camillea turbinata. Saccardo's conclusions were almost as bad as Léveillé's.