234 THE MYXOMYCETES 



forms. It is a good species of Tubifera, nothing more. The tubules 

 are shorter than in either of the preceding species; the spores are 

 darker, larger, and more thoroughly reticulate. The Plasmodium is 

 given by Rex as white, then "dull gray tinged with sienna color," 

 then various tones of sienna-brown, to the dark umber of the mature 

 asthalium. 



Usually of moderate size, the fructification sometimes becomes very 

 large. In the Ellis collection at the New York Botanical Garden there 

 is a specimen collected in the Adirondacks by Dr. Rex measuring 

 13 X 8 cm. Brandza reports it as attaining a spread of several square 

 decimeters. 



New Brunswick, New York, Ontario, Iowa, Washington; Sweden, 

 Rumania, Japan. 



2. Alwisia Berk. & Br. 

 Jour. Linn. Soc. 14 : 86. 1873. 



Sporangia ellipsoidal, clustered, stipitate; dehiscence by the falling 

 away of the upper part of the peridium disclosing a persisting pencil 

 of capillitial threads. 



A single species: 



Alwisia bombarda Berk. & Br. 



Jour. Linn. Soc. 14 : 87. 1873. 

 PL XXI, Fig. 572. 



1876. Trichia fragilis Rost., Mon. App. 39, in part. 



1892. Prototrichia bombarda (Berk. & Br.) Massee, Mon. 128. 



Sporangia gathered in clusters of four to eight, surmounting coales- 

 cent, or sometimes divergent stalks, rusty brown or pallid, the perid- 

 ium evanescent above; the coalescing stalks forming, especially be- 

 low, a clustered column, 2 mm. in height, equalling the sporangia, dull 

 reddish brown in color; capillitium of rigid, tubular, generally simple 

 threads, attaching above by delicate tips, below by a broader some- 

 times branching base, sometimes conjoined near the peridial wall, 

 now and then at irregular intervals inflated slightly or sometimes bulb- 

 ous, roughened by projecting spinules, one-third the diameter, brown- 

 ish or yellow; spores reddish brown, faintly marked by reticulating 

 bands over a large part of the surface, 5-5.5 fx. 



This peculiar species looks at first very little like a myxomycete. The 

 stiff projecting hairs of the capillitium look like hyphas but the spores 

 and general structure are those of a myxomycete. Rostafinski was 

 inclined to make a trichia of it because of the hair-like capillitium and 



