Clavarias of the United States and Canada 31 



about 4-9 mm. high, rarely up to 1.5 cm., nearly white when young, 

 then pale cream, the rather sharp apex soon becoming brick-red 

 to almost black; delicate, but tough, and bending on themselves 

 without breaking, solid, rather abruptly narrowed below to a stalk 

 which is not distinctly marked off and is a third or a fourth the 

 total length. Taste slightly woody ; odor none. 



Spores (of No. 3579) pure white, smooth, elliptic with a more 

 or less pointed mucro end, 1.8-2.3 x 5. 2-7 A\x. Basidia 4-spored, 

 3.7-4.4[x thick; hymenium about 12jx thick, extending all over the 

 tip ; threads of flesh 2.8-4.8;x thick, with septa far apart, clamp con- 

 nections present. 



The plants have the remarkable habit of always growing in 

 association with the alga Chlorococcus, which forms a continuous 

 deep green coat on the log beneath them. They are never found 

 except with the alga, and the species is in a fair way to become a 

 lichen, or is already a primitive lichen. In the Botanical Gazette 

 (37: 62, figs. 16 and 17. 1904) we have published a note with 

 drawings, calling attention to the resemblance of this species to a 

 lichen in habit. Persoon in his original description and later 

 Schweinitz note the constant association with a crust of green 

 powder and Fries refers to its growth with Chlorococcus (Epi- 

 crisis, p. 580). In his Danish Fungi in Herbarium of E. Rostrup, 

 p. 368, 1913 (Copenhagen), J. Lind says of C. mucida, "Surely 

 no Clavaria species, rather any lichen." In America it seems to 

 grow only on Nyssa. It is recorded from Louisiana to Canada, 

 in Europe and New Zealand. The European C. mucida from 

 Stockholm (Romell) has spores distinctly thicker and somewhat 

 shorter than ours, and it might, therefore, be best to make the 

 American form a variety. 



This peculiar species is rare but widely distributed. We have 

 found it several times at Chapel Hill, growing singly in very popu- 

 lous colonies on soggy, decorticated black gum logs in shady, cool 

 places near streams. We have calculated that there were about 

 23,000 plants on the log from which No. 3579 was taken. 



Clavaria mucida var. Curtisii Berk.( Grevillea 2: 17. 1873) 

 is probably not different. The original description is (trans- 

 lated) : "Club-shaped, short, luteous, tip fuscous ; stem white, aris- 



