244 THE MYXOMYCETES 



when fresh, rosy, or ashen with a rosaceous or purplish tinge, becoming 

 with age sordid or ochraceous; spores by transmitted light colorless, 

 minutely roughened or reticulate, 5-6 /*. 



This is not only a cosmopolitan species, but is no doubt the most 

 common slime mold in the world. Found everywhere on decaying 

 wood of all sorts, more particularly on that of deciduous trees. It has 

 likewise been long the subject of observation. It is doubtless the 

 Fungus coccineus of Ray, 1690, and the type of Micheli's genus of 

 1729. The different colors assumed, from the rich scarlet of the emerg- 

 ing plasmodium to the glistening bronze of the newly formed aethalium, 

 have suggested various descriptive names, — as L. miniatum Pers., 

 L. chalybeum of Batsch, and L. plumbed Schum. The peridium is by 

 some authors described as double. This is for description only. In 

 structure the outer and inner peridium completely blend. The outer is 

 predominantly vesiculose, the inner more gelatinous. For discussion 

 of the microscopic structure see L. fldvo-fuscum. 



Lycogdld terrestre Fr. appears to be a form of this species. In spores 

 and capillitial threads it is indistinguishable; the difference is a matter 

 of size, and to some extent, of the color of the wall. The specimens are 

 a little larger, depressed and angular. The peridium is paler, smoother, 

 though sometimes almost black, thin, ruptured irregularly. But the 

 form and color of the peridium in the sporocarps of the older specimens 

 vary much in response to external conditions; on a substratum afford- 

 ing scant nutrition the fructifications are minute; and in all cases, 

 if maturity be hastened, the peridium responds in darker colors. Under 

 more favorable conditions the wall is smoother and brighter. 



Var. tesseldtum Lister (in Penz., Myx. Buit. 77, 1898) is said to be 

 very dark, with the cortical vesicles divided into numerous polygonal 

 chambers. 



Extremely common on dead wood throughout temperate and tropical 

 regions. 



2. Lycogala exiguum Morgdn 



Jour. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist. 15 : 134. 1893. 

 PI. XVI, Figs. 408, 409. 



1913. Lycogala epidendrum (L.) Fr. var. exiguum (Morg.) List., Bot. Mag. 

 Tokyo 27 : 415. 



yEthalia small, 2-5 mm. in diameter, gregarious, globose, dark brown 

 or black, sessile, minutely scaly, irregularly dehiscent; the peridium 

 thin, the vesicles comparatively few, in irregular patches which are 

 more or less confluent; capillitium as in preceding species, the tubules 



