128 ENDOSPORE^E. [LAMPRODERMA. 



This species is not unfrequent in the United States, where it is 

 described by Dr. Rex as sometimes occurring in vast abundance, " cover- 

 ing one entire side of a fallen log about 3 feet in diameter for a 

 length of about 10 feet with the steel-coloured sporangia." The 

 specimens named by Berkeley Stemonitis physaroides var. subaeneus, 

 from Ohio (K. 1560, 1562), correspond in every respect, in size, capilli- 

 tium, and in the spores, which measure 6 to7 /u, with Rostafinski's type 

 of Lamproderma arcyrionema in Strassb. Herb. Comatricha Shimekiaiia 

 Macbride, from Nicaragua (B. M. 1008), is a typical form of L. arcyrio- 

 nema. 



Hal. On dead wood. Epping Forest, Essex (L:B.M.97) ; France 

 (Paris Herb.) ; Poland (L:B.M.97) ; Borneo (L:B.M.97) ; Philadelphia 

 (L:B.M.97) ; Ohio (L:B.M.97) ; Nicaragua (B. M. 1008). 



4. L. irideum Mass., Mon., p. 95 (1892). Plasmodium watery- 

 white, among dead leaves. Total height 1 to 1*5 mm. Sporangia 

 globose, stipitate, erect, scattered or gregarious, 0'3 to 0'5 mm. 

 diam., steel-blue or bronze, brilliantly iridescent ; sporangium- 

 wall delicately membranous, colourless, soon falling away in large 

 fragments. Stalk setaceous, black, shining, rising from a purple- 

 brown circular hypothallus. Columella cylindrical, truncate, 

 scarcely reaching to half the height of the sporangium. Capillitium 

 of rigid threads, radiating from, the apex of the columella, 

 dichotomously branching and anastomosing, black, purple-brown, 

 rarely pale brown, pale at the base, rigid and coloured to the 

 free extremities ; the threads connecting the apex of the columella 

 with the somewhat persistent base of the sporangium-wall usually 

 delicate and colourless. Spores violet-grey, minutely warted, 

 6 '5 to 8 //, diam. Stemonitis scintillans^&rk. & Br., in Journ. Linn. 

 Soc., xv., p. 2 (1877). Lamprodermaarcyrioides\&Y. iridea Cooke, 

 Myx. Brit., p. 50 (1877). Enerthenema muscorum Lev., in Ann. 

 Sc. Nat., Ser. iv., xx., p. 289. 



Plate L., A. a. sporangia, x 3^ ; b. sporangia, x 20 ; c. columella and 

 capillitium, x 80 ; d. branching thread of capillitium, showing the colour- 

 less base, x 180 ; e. spores, x 600 (England). 



This species resembles some forms of L. violaceum, but is marked by 

 the colourless base of the capillitium threads where they spring from 

 the truncate apex of the columella ; apart from the character of the 

 capillitium, which is liable to some variation, it can always be distin- 

 guished by the spores, which instead of being minutely and closely 

 spinulose, as in the pale-spored form of L. violaceum, are beset with 

 scattered warts, which can easily be counted when magnified 1,500 

 diam., and number about thirty on the hemisphere. It is a most 

 abundant species in England ; in heaps of dead leaves it appears in 

 countless numbers, and in a dark fir plantation near Lyme Regis the 

 stones and herbage by the side of a rivulet appeared hoary over an 

 area of many square yards with the young rising sporangia, and a little 

 search showed the mature forms in equal abundance. The specimen 

 in the Kew Collection from Ceylon (K. 1634) has the same character 

 as the English gatherings, and is accurately described by Berkeley 

 under the name of Stemonitis scintillans (I.e.). There are several 

 specimens of this species in the Kew Collection, named L. arcyrioides 

 var. iridea Cke. (K. 615 619) ; these are referred to in Mr. Massee's 



