46 THE MYXOMYCETES 



spores clear violaceous, distinctly warted, 7-11 ju. Plasmodium watery- 

 white or colorless. 



This delicate species is well defined by the characters given. It 

 occurs not rarely on richly manured ground, in forests, meadows, 

 lawns or even on the open prairie. The Plasmodium may form rings 

 several inches in diameter, scattered here and there over a surface 

 several square feet in extent, in fruit ascending the blades of grass, 

 completely covering these with the crowded sporangia. The color of 

 the fruit is well described in the specific name; gray or ashen gray. 

 The spores are usually very distinctly papillate; in some specimens, 

 however, almost smooth; in a few instances, rough. 



The present species well illustrates the difficulty confronting the 

 author of today who, discussing a group of microscopic organisms, 

 would fain use the nomenclature of his predecessors, honored, but 

 equipped with insufficient lenses. Here is a species reported common 

 in Europe, observed by every mycologist there, from Micheli down, 

 and yet awaiting adequate description until Rostafinski in his great 

 book gives the results of microscopic analysis. We are now really 

 dealing with P. cinereum Rost.; P. cinereum (Batsch) is a compliment 

 to certain rather clever water-color drawings. 



Rostafinski gives a long list of synonyms; none, it is believed, rep- 

 resent American forms; and without taking careful thought, surely 

 no one would rudely disturb such honorable interment, but in his 

 description the range of spore measurement, 7-13.3 yu, gives us pause, 

 and raises the suspicion that possibly, in one case or another, the 

 sepulture were perhaps premature. The range is too great! Perhaps, 

 in the series offered in confirmation, small-spored forms represent one 

 species, large-spored, something else. European students may decide 

 this at their leisure. But Rostafinski having, not without much labor, 

 practically completed his review of the physaroid forms, had almost 

 finished the last genus Badhamia, when his mind perhaps returned, 

 no doubt with some lingering misgivings, to the thirteenth species in 

 his Physarum list. There were there, he recalled, some large-spored 

 specimens which had rather badhamioid capillitium. The sessile 

 physarums of Fries were also before him, those especially, "floods 

 albis." Of these one shall be B. panicea, one B. lilacina and one 

 B. verna, described as having rather delicate colorless capillitial tubes 

 combined in a loose net, the calcareous deposits about the enlarged 

 intersections scanty, the spores 12.5 ju. The description of the fruc- 

 tification as a whole is a condensed statement of that which describes 

 P. vernum, and all taken together indicates some physarum. See 

 comment under P. vernum. 



