REVISION OF ENDOGONEAE. 327 



been examined in the Farlow Herbarium. For some inexplicable 

 reason it was later associated in the fourth volume of the Sylloge, in 

 the genus Stigmatella, with a second form, Stigmatclla aurmitiaca B. & 

 C, a wholly different organism belonging to the Myxobacteriaceae, as 

 I have formerly pointed out (Thaxter (1892), p. 402), where the close 

 relationship of S. puhcscens to Endogone is also referred to. Von 

 Hohnel (1909), p. 127, includes in this genus his own S. javanicum, as - 

 well as the two species included in Ackermannia by Patouillard; al- 

 though in a later paper (1910), p. 399, he transfers all of these to 

 Sclerocystis B. & Br., reducing his own species, S. javanicum, to a 

 synonym of S. coremioiclcs B. & Br. Although this disposition seems 

 correct, in so far as the others are concerned, it is certainly not justified 

 in the case of the present species which has no characters which would 

 indicate a near relationship to Sclerocystis. 



Sphaerocreas puhcscens is by no means an uncommon fungus, and is 

 probably widely distributed. It has been repeatedly collected in 

 moist woods and maple swamps at Kittery Point, Maine, and its 

 vicinity, and has been also found at Intervale, N.H. by myself and at 

 Chocorua by Dr. Farlow. It usually produces its fructification on 

 dead leaves or twigs on the leaf cover, or on rotting branches, and in 

 one instance was found in some quantity about old carrion. Less 

 often it has been found on Sphagnum, like E. pisiformis, which it 

 resembles very closely in general appearance; although it is usually 

 much smaller, .2-2 mm., subgregarious, and paler in color when fresh, 

 with a much more conspicuous external tomentum. The resemblance 

 is so close, however, that Krieger appears to have included specimens 

 of both in the miscellaneous gatherings which he has distributed in tlie 

 Fungi Saxonici under Endogone pisiformis, No. 1651. In the Harvard 

 copy at least, one of the two individuals examined proved to be S. 

 puhescens, which, as far as I am informed, is the first European record 

 of its occurrence; while the other was typical E. pisiformis, as I have 

 interpreted it. It is at once distinguishable, however, from the small 

 size of the subspherical, or broadly elliptical spores. Figures 81-82, 

 which are 18 X 15-25 X 22 /x, rarely larger, although Saccardo men- 

 tions a maximum of 30 ju. The spore-walls are relatively thick, 

 1.5-2.5 fx, and distinctly yellowish, while the contents appears to be 

 hyaline or nearly so; usually with one or more large oil globules, 

 associated with a variable number of small granules, but seldom uni- 

 formly and densely granular. - They are produced acrogenously on 

 very fine branching thick walled, refractive hyphae, 2 ^^ or less in 

 diameter, with few if any visible septa, and are distributed indis- 



