50 THE NORTH AMERICAN SLIME-MOULDS 



29. PHYSARUM RUFIPES {Alb. and Schw.*) Morgan. 



1805. Physarum aurantiacum var. rufipes Alb. and Schw., Consp. 

 p. 94. 



1829. Diderma rufipes (Alb. and Schw.), Fries, Syst. Myc., III., p. 101. 



1873. Physarum pulchripes Peck., Bull. Buff. Soc. Nat. Hist., I., p. 64. 



1873. Didymtum erythrinum Berk., Grev., II., p. 52 (perhaps). 



1873. Physarum petersii Berk, and Curt., Grev., II., p. 66. 



1875. Physarum schumacheri Spr. var. rufipes Alb. and Schw., Rost, 

 Man., p. 99. 



1894. Physarum pulchripes (Peck), Lister, Mycetozoa, p. 41. 



1896. Cytidium rufipes Alb. and Schw., Morgan, Jour. Cm. Soc. Nat. 

 Hist., p. 81. 



Sporangia gregarious, dark colored, sprinkled with orange 

 flakes of lime, globose, the wall thin, deciduous, stipitate ; stipe 

 slender, erect, deep red, sometimes black below, pale or orange 

 above, and supported on a well-developed hypothallus ; colu- 

 mella scant or none; capillitium dense, the meshes and nodes 

 unusually small and delicate, the latter reddish or yellow; 

 spore-mass black ; spores by transmitted light, violet tinted, 

 8.25 p, almost smooth. 



The striking contrast of color between sporangia and stipes 

 renders this species quite distinct from any related form. The 

 peridium in the specimens before us are black or iridescent 

 black sprinkled more or less profusely with orange lime 

 granules which sometimes cover all but the base. The stipe, 

 springing from a small hypothallus, is dark red below for about 

 one-fourth its height, then vermilion, above expanding slightly 

 beneath the peridium ; the columella scant or none. The 

 capillitium is an elegant delicate net with numerous small, 

 uniformly regular, calcareous nodes, orange; by transmitted 

 light, yellow. The spores, brown in mass, are, by transmitted 

 light, pale violet, slightly papillose, 8-10 /*, mostly about 8 /A. 

 The plasmodium is probably yellow. 



This species is no doubt closely related to the next. It is, 

 however, much smaller, has a calcareous stipe, and a much less 

 variegated peridium, and generally a small columella. 



Rostafinski made this a variety of P. schumacheri Spreng., 



