226 THE MYXOMYCETES 



5. Licea pusilla Schrad. 



Nov. Gen. Plant. 19. pi. VI, 4. 1797. 



1808. Trichia pusilla (Schrad.) Poiret, Lam. Encycl. 8 : 131. 



1829. Physarum licea Fr., Syst. Myc. 3 : 143. 



1875. Protoderma pusilla (Schrad.) Rost., Mon. 90. 



1888. Protodermium pusillum (Schrad.) Berl., in Sacc. Syll. Fung. 7 : 328. 



Sporangia scattered, gregarious, depressed-globose, sessile on a 

 flattened base, dark purplish brown, shining, 0.5-1 mm.; peridium 

 thin, dark colored, translucent, dehiscent above by regular segments; 

 spore-mass dark olive, almost black; spores by transmitted light oliva- 

 ceous brown, smooth or nearly so, 13-17 jx. Plasmodium chrome-yellow. 



Fries thought this a physarum, and argued the case at length, 

 evidently with such efficiency that he greatly impressed Rostafinski, 

 who did not make it a physarum indeed, but actually gave it generic 

 place and station of its own; a physarum may do without calcium in 

 the capillitium perhaps, but not be entirely non-calcareous; so he 

 writes Protoderma (first cover) and places the species number 1 on 

 the long list of endosporous forms. In his supplement, he refers to the 

 thing again, but only to correct the inflexional ending of the specific 

 name; he writes Protoderma pusillum (Schrader) Rost.! 



Schweinitz reports the species for America. Morgan merely cites 

 Schweinitz. We have one collection from Iowa. 



North Carolina, Iowa; Europe. 



6. Licea biforis Morgan 



Jour. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist. 15 : 131. 1893. 

 PL XV, Figs. 375, 376. 



Sporangia regular, compressed, sessile on a narrow base, gregarious, 

 up to 0.2 mm. long and 0.05-0.1 mm. broad; walls firm, thin, smooth, 

 yellow-brown in color and nearly opaque, with minute, scattered 

 granules on the inner surface, at maturity opening into two equal 

 parts, which remain persistent by the base; spores yellow-brown in 

 mass, globose or oval, minutely roughened, 9-12 /x. 



Minute but perfectly regular, almost uniform, corneous-looking spo- 

 rangia are thickly strewn often over the inner surface of decaying 

 bark. Each, at first elongate, pointed at each end, opens at length by 

 fissure along the upper side setting free the minute yellowish spores. 

 Unlike anything else; reminding one, at first sight, of some species 

 of Glonium. Miss Baker notes that a cross section shows the spores 

 arranged in regular radial series. 



Ontario, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa; Manchuria, Japan. 



