CRATER SUM 75 



Sporangia scattered, globose or obovoid, yellow, stipitate ; 

 peridium above, thin, membranous, fragile, covered with large 

 thick scales and nodules of lime, which are amber colored or 

 golden yellow, below thicker, persistent, naked, plicatulate red 

 brown ; stipe red brown, slender, long, plicate, rising from a 

 small hypothallus ; capillitium of thick tubules forming a net- 

 work with wide nodes ; the nodules of lime large, numerous, 

 yellow, lobate or branched; spores pale violaceous, minutely 

 warted, 9-10 //.. 



" Growing on old stalks of Zea mays. Sporangium with the 

 stalk 1-1.5 mm - m height and 0.4-0.6 mm. in diameter, the stipe 

 always longer than the sporangium, I find it in abundance on 

 old stalks of Indian corn, but never on anything else." 

 Morgan, I.e. 



A small delicate species, referable with almost equal pro- 

 priety to Craterium or Physarum. In the most perfect speci- 

 mens the calyx is low-vasiform, about one-third the sporangium, 

 smooth, or lightly plicate and plainly differentiated from dome- 

 like upper peridium. In other cases the basal membrane is but 

 slightly developed. These characters with its peculiar slender 

 habit readily distinguish this form from Physarum auriscalpium. 

 It resembles C. aureum in color somewhat, but is more globose 

 and has a much longer stipe. From its peculiar habitat it 

 should be widely distributed, but so far has been reported from 

 Ohio only. 



3. CRATERIUM RUBESCENS Rex. 



1893. Craterium rubescens Rex, Proc. Phil. Acad., p. 370. 



Sporangia gregarious, cylindrical or elongate cyathiform, stipi- 

 tate, dark violet red, the apex slightly roughed by pale calca- 

 reous granules, the peridium longitudinally wrinkled below ; 

 dehiscence, irregularly circumscissile ; stipe darker, one-half the 

 height of the sporangium, longitudinally wrinkled ; capillitium 

 dense, abundantly calcareous ; spores violet brown, minutely 

 roughened, 7-8 p. 



In form resembling the preceding species, but instantly dis- 



