DIDYMIUM 111 



dull pinkish stipes and very dark spores covered with coarse, capitate 

 spines and a coarse and irregular reticulum. 

 California, Brazil; Japan. 



10. Didymium leoninum Berk. &* Br. 



Jour. Linn. Soc. 14 : 83. 1873. 



1876. Lepidoderma tigrinum (Schrad.) Rost., Mon. App. 23, in part. 

 1909. Lepidodermopsis leoninus (Berk. & Br.) Hohn., Sitzungsb. Akad. Wiss. 

 Wien, Math.-Nat. Kl. 118 (1) : 439. 



Sporangia gregarious, subglobose or flattened, stipitate, the wall 

 cartilaginous, yellowish, covered more or less completely with white 

 or yellowish deposits of crystalline lime; stipes short, orange or brown, 

 containing lime, enlarged to form the globose orange columella and 

 often connected at base by a venulose hypothallus; capillitium of 

 slender anastomosing threads, colorless at the tips; spores violet-gray, 

 minutely warted, 7-9 /*. 



Not unlike Lepidoderma tigrinum, but with stellate crystals and 

 smaller spores. The scale-like clusters in which the crystals may occur 

 led Hohnel to propose for this species a new genus intermediate between 

 Didymium and Lepidoderma. 



Southern Asia and Japan. 



11. Didymium eximium Peck 



Rept. N. Y. State Mus. 31 : 41. 1879. 



1892. Didymium fulvellum Massee, Mon. 237. 



1925. Didymium nigripes Fr. var. eximium (Peck) Lister, Mycetozoa ed. 3. 116. 



Sporangia scattered, dull grayish yellow or gray, depressed-globose, 

 umbilicate, minute, stipitate; peridium comparatively thick, tenacious, 

 especially persistent below, tawny or yellow; stipe pale brown or 

 orange, erect, even or slightly enlarged at base; hypothallus scant or 

 none; columella prominent, more or less discoidal, rough or spinulose, 

 especially on the upper surface, yellow or pallid; capillitium not 

 abundant, pale fuliginous, often branching and anastomosing to form 

 a loose net; spores nearly smooth, dark violaceous by transmitted 

 light, 8.5-9.5 ix. 



The species differs from D. xanthopus in several particulars — in the 

 much firmer, more persistent and less calcareous peridium with a 

 distinct yellowish cast, in the more complex capillitium, in the darker 

 and larger spores and especially in the peculiar and prominent col- 

 umella, which is not only rough, but even "sometimes spinulose even 

 to the extent of long spicules penetrating to one-third the height of 

 the sporangia." 



