BOTRYTIS  , a

minute fungus which appears as a brownish-grey mould on decaying vegetation or on damaged fruits . Under a hand-lens it is seen to consist of tiny, upright, brown stalks which are branched at the tips, each branchlet being crowned with a naked head of pale-coloured spores . It is a very common fungus, growing everywhere in the open or in greenhouses, and can be found at almost any season . It has also a bad record as a plant disease . If it once gains entrance into one of the higher plants, it spreads rapidly, killing the tissues and reducing them to a rotten condition . Seedling pines, lilies and many other cultivated plants are subject to attack by Botrytis . Some of the species exist in two other growth-forms, so different in appearance from the Botrytis that they have been regarded as distinct plants:—a sclerotium, which is a hard compact mass of fungal filaments, or mycelium, that can retain its vitality for a considerable time in a resting condition; and a stalked Peziza, I in 1856 . In 1861 and 1862 he conducted at Palermo, supervising or cup-fungus, which grows out of the sclerotium . The latter the production of his opera Marion Delorme in 1862, and in 1863 is the perfect form of fruit .