CHONDRIODERMA.] PHYSARACE.E. 75 



Genus 8. LEOCARPUS Link, in Bed. Ges. Nat. Fr. Mag., 

 iii., p. 25 (1809). Sporangium with two walls, the outer 

 cartilaginous and calcareous, shining ; the inner hyaline. 

 Capillitium more or less arranged in two systems, one consisting 

 of a network of rigid hyaline threads, the other of coarse anasto- 

 mosing branches charged with coloured granules of lime. 



1. L. vernicosus Link, I.e. (1809). Plasmodium orange-yellow, 

 among dead leaves. Sporangia obovoid or globose, sessile or shortly 

 stalked, crowded, 2 to 4 mm. long, chestnut or purple-brown, 

 shiniug as if varnished, sometimes dehiscing in revolute floriform 

 lobes ; sporangium-wall double : the outer wall consisting of two 

 layers, the outer cartilaginous, orange-brown, the inner densely 

 calcareous, white ; the inner wall is hyaline, giving attach- 

 ment to the capillitium. Columella none. Stalk short, weak, 

 yellowish, translucent, arising from a membranous hypothallus. 

 Capillitium a network of rigid hyaline threads w r ith flattened 

 expansions at the axils and with few lime-knots, connected with 

 a system of coarse branches often combined into a dense network 

 and charged throughout with brownish lime-granules. Spores 

 violet-brown, spinulose, 11 to 13 //, diain., occasionally 15 to 

 20 fji diam., rarely clustered as in Badhamia. Grev., Scot. Crypt. 

 FL, ii. (1824), t. 111. Didenna rernicosum Pers., in Usteri, Ann. 

 Bot., xv., p. 34 (1795). Lycoperdon fragile Dicks., PI. Crypt. 

 Brit., i., p. 25 (1785). Leocarpus jragilis Rost,, Mon., p. 132, 

 fig. 93 ; Cooke, Myx. Brit,, p. 23 ; Mass., Mon., p. 338 ; Blytt, 

 Bidr. Norg., Sop. iii., p. 5 ; Macbride, in Bull. Nat. Hist. Iowa, 

 ii., p. 153. 



Plate XXIX.. A. a. sporangia, x 20 ; It. capillitium and spores with 

 fragment of sporangium-wail showing the three layers, x 170 ; c. spore, 

 x 600 (England). 



Hob. On dead leaves, etc. Hornsey, Middlesex (B. M. 22) ; Epping 

 Forest, Essex (L:B.M.51) ; Leighton Buzzard, Beds. (L-.B.M.51) ; 

 Lyme Regis, Dorset (L:B.M.51) ; Mortonhall, Edinburgh (B. M. 1061); 

 France (Paris Herb.) ; Belgium (B. M. 482) ; Germany (B. M. 1059) ; 

 Poland (Strassb. Herb.) ; Bohemia (B. M. 489) ; Finland (B. M. 492) ; 

 Tasmania (K. 1390) ; Mass., U.S.A. (B. M. 493) ; Iowa (B. M. 818) ; 

 S. Carolina (B. M. 495). 



Leocarpus ramosus Fr. Summ. Veg. Scan., p. 450, is excluded by 

 Rostafinski, on the ground of its being probably an immature specimen 

 of L. vernicosus (Rost., Mon., p. 306). 



Genus 9. CHONDRIODERMA Rostafinski, Yersuch, p. 13 

 (1873). Sporangia sessile or stipitate; sporangium-wall of two 

 layers, the outer either a crust composed of globular lime-granules 

 and usually separating from an inner membranous layer, or 

 cartilaginous, more or less charged with lime, and not separating 

 from the inner layer (except in C. /Sauteri) ; capillitium without 

 lime-knots. The genus Chondrioderma embraces two sub-genera, 

 Euchondrioderma and Leangium, which are connected by inter- 

 mediate forms. 



