164 Mycetozoa of North America 



ally acute, purplish brown. Stalk about one quarter the total 

 height, black, continuing as a columella nearly to the summit. 

 Capillitium a dense tangle of purplish brown threads, looped 

 somewhat at the surface, and forming a more or less defined 

 surface-net in the lower half. Spores somewhat pale violet- 

 brown, distinctly and uniformly warted or spinulose, 6-8 /x diam. 



Type locality: New York, 



Habitat: On dead wood. 



Distribution: Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, New York, 

 North Carolina, *Nova Scotia, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Quebec. 



Illustration: Macbr. & Martin, Myxomycetes pi. 12, figs. 

 295, 296. 



This species often has large plasmodia forming thousands of 

 sporangia over many feet of surface. I have seen one fruiting 

 covering between 30 and 40 square feet. The sporangia are 

 remarkably uniform in all characters in these developments. The 

 form is not common, appearing spasmodically in a single or many 

 developments in a particular region, and then without reappear- 

 ance in years, but may be expected almost anywhere. More 

 often, small colonies are found that differ somewhat from the 

 description. The sporangia are more scattered, larger, up to 3 

 or 4 mm., and rhe spores also larger, up to 10 /x. These approach 

 C. aequalis, to which as well as C. nigra the species is closely 

 related, but with the surface-net in the lower half of the sporan- 

 gium, showing a leaning to the genus Stemonitis. A slight 

 inclination to form a surface-net at the base of the sporangium 

 is seen occasionally in C. nigra and other species of this group. 



12. Comatricha typhoides (Bull.) Rost. Versuch 7. 1873. 



rrichia typhoides Bull. Herb. Fr. pi. 477, fig. 2. 1789; Bull. Champ. 119. 

 1791. 



Plasmodium watery white (Lister). Total height 2 to 4 mm. 

 Sporangia in loose clusters or scattered, stalked, cylindrical, 

 obtuse, at first silvery-gray from the presence of the early evanes- 

 cent sporangial wall, then lilac-brown. Stalk black, clothed with 

 the silvery membranous continuation of the sporangial wall, about 

 half the total height or sometimes less, rising from a well devel- 

 oped hypothallus. Columella reaching nearly to the summit of 

 the sporangium, branching at the apex. Capillitium a close net- 

 work of flexuose, pale brown threads, springing from all parts of 

 the columella as stout branches, the ultimate branchlets more 



