Brefeldia 185 



1. Brefeldia maxima (Fries) Rost. Versuch 9. 1873. 

 Reticularia maxima Fries, Syst. Orb. Veg. 1: 147. 1825. 



Plasmodium cream-white. Aethalium large, pulvinate, 2 to 

 30 cm. or more across, 5 to 15 mm. thick, purplish brown, com- 

 posed of elongate branching sporangia 0.3 to 0.5 mm. diam., 

 extending upwards from the spongy basal tissue; distinct, rigid 

 columellae often present. Capillitium consisting of numerous, 

 dark threads radiating from the inner part of each sporangium, 

 free from the columella; each thread expands at the surface of 

 the sporangium into a vesicle of many chambers, which is con- 

 tinued into a corresponding radial thread of the adjoining sporan- 

 gium; proximal ends of the threads connected in clusters of three 

 or four by a fragile membrane; vesicles of firm texture, often 

 containing a spore in several of the chambers, occasionally coalesc- 

 ing in lesser or greater numbers to form vertical scalariform 

 strands. Spores purplish brown, minutely spinulose, 9-12 ^t 

 diam. 



Type locality: Sweden. 



Habitat: On dead wood. 



Distribution: Iowa, Massachusetts, *Minnesota, New York, 

 Ontario, *Oregon, *Pennsylvania, Quebec, *Wisconsin. 



Illustration: Lister, Mycetozoa ed. 3. pi. 136, figs. d~g. 



The complexity of the capillitium has been analyzed and ex- 

 plained by Lister and by Macbride. It is a feature unknown in 

 any other species of the Mycetozoa, and, with some of the spores 

 in the vesicles, and the large, dark aethalium, makes it easy to 

 recognize the form. It is not common, although I have found it 

 four times in swampy lowlands of Long Island, New York. On 

 two occasions the rising plasmodium was on living trees, three to 

 six feet from the ground. Lister also mentions the wandering 

 habit of the plasmodium. The plasmodia were infested with the 

 eggs of insects, and the hatched larvae were later feeding on the 

 spores. All specimens were found in the autumn, shortly before 

 cold weather set in. The aethalia are loose and fragile, and do 

 not last long in the open. 



Order II. CRIBRARIALES 



Spores variously colored, not violet-brown or purplish gray, 

 except in Licea minima. 



