DIACHEA 149 



brilliantly iridescent sporangia are lifted above the substratum on 

 snow- white columnar stalks; these are again joined one to another by 

 the pure white vein-like cords of the reticulate hypothallus. The Plas- 

 modium may spread very widely over all sorts of objects that come in 

 the way, dry forest leaves and sticks, or the fruit and foliage of living 

 plants. Closely resembling D. leucopodia, but differing in the globose 

 sporangia, it may be instantly recognized under the lens by its coarsely 

 papillate and subreticulate spores. 



Miss Lister regards this as a variety of D. bulbillosa. So far as our 

 scanty material of the latter species enables us to judge, they are clearly 

 distinct. 



Not common. New York, Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Iowa, 

 Nebraska. 



4. Diachea radiata G. Lister & Petch 



Jour. Bot. 54 : 130. 1916. 



Sporangia loosely clustered, or crowded in large colonies, hemispher- 

 ical or globose, 0.4-0.5 mm. in diameter, sessile or rarely stalked, 

 iridescent-gray or bronze, seated on a white hypothallus; sporangium 

 wall membranous, colorless; stalks, when present, short, stout, fur- 

 rowed, white, calcareous; columella white, convex, conical or short- 

 cylindrical; capillitium a network of purple-brown threads radiating 

 from the columella; spores pale violet-gray, spinulose or warted, 8-11 fx. 

 Plasmodium orange-yellow. 



Apparently close both to D. subsessilis, from which it is separated by 

 spore characters, and to the globose phase of D. leucopodia, from which 

 it would seem to differ in the color of the sporangium wall and that of 

 the Plasmodium. Specimens not seen. 



Ceylon, southern Nigeria. 



5. Diachea subsessilis Peck 



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

 PI. X, Figs. 231, 232. 



Sporangia gregarious or closely crowded, small, about 0.5 mm., dull 

 iridescent-blue or greenish gray, globose or depressed-globose; stipe 

 generally very short, reduced sometimes to a mere persistent cone, 

 white or pale brown; columella obsolescent or reduced to a conical 

 intrusion of the stipe; capillitium radiating from the stipe, brown, con- 

 sisting of branching, anastomosing threads, paler at the tips; hypo- 



