70 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM, 
with iodine blue; paraphyses coherent, simple, entire, not clavate nor colored at the 
tips; hypothecium paler yellow than the epithecium, about 60 » high, asci inflated- 
clavate, equaling the thecium in height, the membrane thickened above; spores 
broadly ovoid-ellipsoid, 19 to 21 « long, 12 » thick, indistinctly bilocular; septation 
plainer after KHO, the spore then sometimes trilocular. 
Sandstone, Santa Monica Range. 
EPHEBACEAE. 
Thallus dwarf-fruticulose, terete and closely branching or foliaceous; symbionts 
Scytonema or Stigonema alge. In our district represented only by one genus of the 
several classed here by authors. 
POLYCHIDIUM Ach. 
Thallus foliaceous, deeply lobate and incised, appressed or ascending, or fruti- 
culose with terete ramifications, naked or ciliolate; gonidia concatenate, consisting of 
Scytonema alge; apothecia sessile, biatorine, red-brown, the disk flat to convex; 
paraphyses not branched, coherent and thickened at the tips; asci clavate, 8-spored, 
the spores fusiform-oblong, bilocular; spermatia short, cylindric. 
KEY TO SPECIES. 
Thallus foliaceous...............00 022-0 c cece eee eee cee ece 1. P. alboctliatum. 
Thallus fruticulose.........0......0......0--.-02-2 eee eee ... 2. P. muscicola. 
1. Polychidium albociliatum (Desmaz.) Zahlbr. in Engl. & Prantl, Nat. Pflan- 
zenfam. 1!*: 157. 1907. 
Leptogium albociliatum Desmaz. Ann. Sci. Nat. IV. Bot. 4: 182. 1855. 
Thallus foliaceous, olive green, elongate; lobed border of thallus crenate, finely 
laciniate and fringed with a row of short white cilis extending onto the under surface; 
apothccia sessile, 0.5 to 1 mm. wide, disk flat or slightly convex, brownish red, with 
an entire, indistinct, lighter colored margin; epithecium continuous, faint yellow, 
gradually paling downward; thecium 72 to 100 high, colorless or faintly tinted similar 
to the epithecium; paraphyses adglutinated, somewhat thickened and some of them 
colored at the tips; hypothecium about half the height of the thecium and in color like 
the epithecium; asci inflated-clavate and ventricose, 80 » high, 24 » thick, the upper 
part of membrane thickened; spores broadly fusiform, bilocular, colorless, acuminate 
at both ends, 20 to 24 « long, 7 to 9 « thick; hymenial gelatine with iodine blue, soon 
sordid brownish yellow. 
Among mosses on rocks or on the ground, in the Santa Monica and San Gabriel 
Ranges. Europe. 
2. Polychidium muscicola (Swartz) S. F. Gray. 
Thallus fruticulose, terete, shining, dark brown and blackening toward the apices, 
ramifying dichotomously and trichotomously, intertangled, 3 to 4 mm. high, a trans- 
verse section giving a cortical layer of large, oblong-ovoid cells, 10 to 12 4 long, 6 to 8 
thick; under this layer the gonidial layer of blue green alge, these 7 to 10 # in diameter, 
in the axis coarse longitudinal hyphe; spermogones not seen; apothecia compara- 
tively large, adnate, 0.25 to 1 mm. in diameter; disk concave, brown, the margin of 
the same color, erect, entire; epithecium light yellowish brown, subcontinuous; 
thecium colorless to pallid yellowish, 100 to 108 « high; paraphyses adglutinated; 
hypothecium colored similarly with the epithecium and about equaling the thecium 
in height; asci inflated-clavate or saccate; spores 6 to 8 in asci, oblong-fusiform, 
bilocular, a large oil globule in each loculus, acute or acuminate-blunt at each end, 
24 to 30 « long, 7 to 8 » thick; hymenial gelatine with iodine blue except the epithe- 
cium, this retaining its natural color. 
On sandstone, Topanga Canyon, Santa Monica Range. 
