124 ENDOSPORE^E. [ENERTHENEMA. 



0'75 mm. broad. Yar. oblonga, sporangia 0'75 to 1 mm. long, 

 0*3 to 0*5 mm. broad. 



Hab. Near Cracow. 



This description applies to a form of C. obtusata with spores rather 

 more distinctly warted than usual. 



Genus 17. ENERTHENEMA Bowman, in Trans. Linn. Soc., 

 xvi., p. 152 (1830). Sporangia stipitate ; columella reaching to 

 the apex of the sporangium ; capillitium springing from beneath 

 the superficially extended end of the columella. 



1. E. elegans Bowm., I.e., p. 152, tab. 16 (1830). Plasmodiuni 

 watery-white. Total height 1 to 1*5 mm. Sporangia globose, 

 stipitate, erect, gregarious, 0'5 to 0'75 mm. diarn., dull black, 

 crowned with the small iridescent salver-shaped apex of the 

 columella ; sporangium-wall evanescent. Stalk conical, black. 

 Columella slender, cylindrical from a conical base, traversing the 

 sporangium and expanding on the surface into a membranous 

 umbilicate disc O'l to 0'2 mm. broad. Capillitium threads 

 spreading from the expanded apex of the columella, long, slender, 

 black, sparingly branched, straight or flexuose. Spores greyish- 

 brown, spinufose, 8 to 10 /x- diam. Mass., Mon., p. 105. Stemo- 

 nitis papillata Pers., in Rorner, N. Mag. Bot., p. 90; Berk, in 

 Eiig. El., vol. v., ii., p. 317. Enerthenema papillata Host., Mon., 

 App., p. 28; Cooke, Myx. Brit., p. 51. E. elegans Berk. & Br. 

 in Ami. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 2, vol. v., p. 366. E. Berkley ana 

 Rost., Mon., App., p. 29; Mass., Mon., p. 106. Ancyrophorus 

 crassi2)es Raunkiser, in Bot. Tidssk., xvii., p. 93, t. v., figs. 8, 9 ; 

 Mass., Mon., p. 107. 



Plate XLVII.,A. a. sporangia, x 20 ; &. sporangia with spores dispersed, 

 showing capillitium arising from under the apical disc of the columella, x 

 35 ; c. sporangia with capillitium arising from the whole length of the 

 columella, and anastomosing to form more or less of a network ; found in 

 company with sporangia with normal capillitium, x 35 ; d. spore, x 600 

 (England). 



Occasionally the capillitium threads are much branched and spring 

 from all parts of the columella, which may then terminate below the 

 apex of the sporangium ; but all conditions between this and the normal 

 form occur in the same group of sporangia. The account with the 

 figure of Ancyrophorus crassipes Raunkiasr, I.e., well describes this 

 variety. In what remains of the type of E. Berkeley anu in Host., from 

 S. Carolina (K. 1643), no spores of an Enerthenema can be detected ; 

 the specimen is beset with clusters of brown spores or dividing cells of 

 a parasitic fungus. Berkeley and Broome describe this specimen as 

 having the " spores produced in little heads surrounded by a common 

 vesicle at the free apices of the flocci," and of this being " almost the 

 only case in which the spores of a Myxogaster have been observed in 

 situ ; Ptychogaster is the single exception." The sporangia are of the 

 typical form of E, elegans, and it appears possible that the mould was 

 mistaken by Berkeley and Broome for the true spores. 



Hab. On dead wood. Wanstead, Essex (L:B.M.94) ; Lyme Regis, 

 Dorset (L:B.M.94); Portbury, Somerset (B. M. 236); Batheaston, 

 Somerset (B. M. 238) ; Edinburgh (K. 1642) ; Germany (Strassb. 

 Herb.) ; 8. Carolina (K. 1643). 



