TUBIFERA 233 



2. Tubifera stipitata (Berk. &° Rav.) Macbr. 



N. A. Slime-Moulds 157. 1899. 

 PI. XV, Figs. 384, 385. 



1860. Licea stipitata Berk. & Rav. ex Berk. & Curt., Proc. Am. Acad. Arts 



& Sc. 4 : 125, non DC. 1815. 

 1873. Licea microsperma Berk. & Curt., Grev. 2 : 68. 



1875. Tubulina stipitata (Berk. & Rav.) Rost., Mon. 223. 



Sporangia crowded in a globose or more or less hemispheric, ex- 

 panded head, borne upon a spongy, stem-like, silicate hypothallus 

 3-4 mm. high, their apices rounded, their walls very thin, evanescent; 

 spores in mass umber-brown, small, about 5 /*, the epispore reticulate 

 as in the preceding species. 



This differs from the preceding species chiefly in the cushion-like 

 receptacle on which the crowded sporangia are borne, and in the 

 smaller spores. The fructification originates in a plasmodium at first 

 colorless, then white, followed by salmon or buff tints, which pass 

 gradually into the dark brown of maturity. This peculiar succession 

 of colors is perhaps more diagnostic than the difference in habit. 

 The spores are, however, constantly smaller in all the specimens we 

 have examined, and the stipitate habit very marked. 



New England, New York, south to South Carolina and the West 

 Indies, west to Wisconsin, South Dakota and Missouri, Dutch Guiana, 

 Brazil, Argentina; Ceylon, Malay Peninsula, Japan. 



3. Tubifera casparyi (Rost.) Macbr. 



N. A. Slime-Moulds 157. 1899. 



1876. Siphoptychium casparyi Rost., Mon. App. 32. 



Sporangia closely crowded, tubular, cylindric or prismatic by mutual 

 pressure, connate, the apices rounded, convex, covered by a continu- 

 ous membrane, umber-brown; the peridia firm, persistent, minutely 

 granular, iridescent; hypothallus well developed, thin, brown, expla- 

 nate; pseudocolumellas erect, rigid, traversing many of the sporangia, 

 and in some instances bound back to the peridial walls by slender, 

 membranous bands or threads, a pseudocapillitium; spore-mass dark 

 brown or umber; spores by transmitted light pale, globose, reticulate, 

 7.5-9 ii. 



Rostafinski proposed the genus Siphoptychium to accommodate 

 this species. Rex (Bot. Gaz. 15 : 319) showed that the relationships 

 of the species are with Tubifera; that the so-called columella is prob- 

 ably an abortive sporangium; the so-called capillitial threads having 

 no homology with the capillitial threads of the true columelliferous 



