442 AQUATIC PHYCOMYCETES 



Sporangium variable in shape and size, spherical, ovoid, broadly 

 clavate, or somewhat angular, 22-250 \x in diameter (occasionally only 

 3.3 u.), wall thick, smooth, colorless in small individuals, yellowish and 

 minutely punctate in large ones, contents rose red, becoming light 

 orange, golden, to brownish red at maturity, with one or several 

 (up to twenty-four) broad discharge tubes filled with colorless gelat- 

 inous material; rhizoids one or more, laterally attached near the base 

 of the sporangium or variously placed, up to 19 [x broad at point of 

 origin, branched, extensive, up to 650 \i or more long, ramifying 

 between the particles of the substrata; zoospores numerous, oval to 

 spherical, rose-colored, 3.3-5.3 \x in diameter, with one or more dark 

 globules or a single colorless globule, and a basal dense protoplasmic 

 spot, escaping individually or in pairs, directly, or after the dehiscence 

 of a basal membrane in the discharge tube ("endooperculum") or through 

 a pore in this membrane, movement hopping or amoeboid; resting 

 spore spherical, ovoid, or irregular, with a smooth somewhat thickened 

 wall, contents granular, with globules, olive brown to orange brown, 

 upon germination functioning as a prosporangium. 



Forming rose-colored granulations on surface of moist soil in flower- 

 pot, de Bary and Woronin (be. cit.), moist blotting paper, Sorauer 

 (in Schroeter, 1885: 191), soil, Remy (1948:214), Harder (1948:6), 

 Reinboldt (1951: 178), Germany; parasitic on germinating spores of 

 Equisetum, Cornu (1869b: 223), France; soil, blotting paper, Couch 

 (1939a), M. W. Ward (1939), Whiffen (in M. W. Ward, 1939), Johanson 

 (1944), Karling, (1948c: 509), soil, Sparrow (Michigan) United States; 

 soil, coll. R. E. Coker, Cox (in Ward, 1939), Galapagos Islands; 

 soil, Sorgel (1941), West Indies; Shanor (1944), Mexico; Shen and 

 Siang (1948:185), China; Sparrow (1948: 447), Marshall Islands; 

 soil, Karling (1947b: 65), Brazil; soil, Sparrow (1952a: 37), Cuba; 

 soil, Harder (1954:4), Swedish Lapland; soil, substrate ?, Gaertner 

 (1954b: 22), Egypt, Northwest Africa, West Africa, Equatorial 

 East Africa, South Africa; vegetable debris, Sparrow (1957a: 528), 

 Great Britain. 



De Bary and Woronin did not consider the fungus a parasite. Cornu's 

 observations indicated, however, that it occurred on the surface of the 

 sand in his flats only where there were groups of Equisetum spores. The 



