\ I ! >ULARIACEAE 183 



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Ohio. Lima. Dawson, coll. (N. Y. B. G. Herb.). 



Illinois. I'rbana. McDougall, coll. (U. N. C. Herb.). 



Wyoming. Pitchfork. (U. N. C. Herb.) 



Washington. Langlcy. Grant, coll. (V. N. C. Herb.). 



Also from many other states in X. V. 15. G. Herb, and U. S. Natl. Herb. 



New Zealand. Wellington. Atkinson, coll. (U. N. C. Herb, from Cunningham Herb.). Spores 

 smooth, oval-elliptic, 3.7-5 x 6.8-9^. 



NIDULARIA Fries 



Plants subglobose, the peridium wall of one layer and without an epiphram, not 

 opening regularly or forming a perfect cup, but thin and fragile and breaking up ir- 

 regularly, leaving the peridioles in an exposed pile on the substratum. Peridioles (in 

 our species) dark brown to reddish brown, shining, not attached by cords to the peridium 

 wall, but embedded in a mucus when fresh, the mucus drying down and sticking the 

 peridioles together after exposure. 



Miss White uses the name Granularia Roth, but, as Fries and Tulasne use Nidu- 

 laria and the latter clearly defines the genus as now used we retain the latter name. 

 Both names antedate Fersoon. 



Key to the Species 



Plants minute, sporangioles less than half mm. broad JV. caslanea 



Plants larger, sporangioles more than a half mm. broad N. pulvinata 



Nidularia pulvinata (Schw.) Fries 



Granularia pulvinata (Schw.) Kuntze 

 Granularia piriformis Roth 

 Nidularia pisiformis (Roth) Zell. 

 Nidularia alabamensis Atk. 

 Nididaria globosa (Ehr.) Fr. 



Plate 122 



Plants subglobose, small, up to about 6 mm. thick in specimen seen, surface cin- 

 namon brown, covered with a felted and somewhat powdery tomentum; peridium 

 excluding the tomentum only one layer thick, that is, there is no thin inner layer that is 

 stretched over the top as a diaphram before opening. Peridioles small, flattened, 

 only up to 0.8 mm. wide, dark brown, wrinkled when dry, densely packed, destitute 

 of a funiculus or other attachment to the wall, but embedded in a mucus when fresh 

 and damp and lightly stuck together by this mucus when dry. The surface of the 

 plants may be nodulated from the pressure of the peridioles within. After maturity 

 the peridium ruptures irregularly and does not form a perfect cup as in the other genera. 



Spores (of No. 7588) ovate to subelliptic, hyaline, smooth, 4.2-5.5 x 6-7.4/i, mixed 

 with irregular, branched and nodulated, thick-walled cells. Basidia 4-spored (Maire, 

 Comp. Rend. 131 (2): 1248. 1900; as N. globosa). 



A rare plant but widely distributed, growing gregariously on wood. It was first 

 described under this species name from North Carolina, but Lloyd is probably right in 

 thinking it the same as N. pisiformis of Europe, which has also been described under 

 many other names. We have examined the type of Nidularia alabamensis and find 

 that it agrees in all respects with N. pulvinata. The spores are oval with one end 

 distinctly pointed, 4-5.5 x 5-7.4/u. 



