OLIGONEMA 279 



less conspicuous. The colonies are usually larger, as are the individual 

 sporangia. 



Oligonema brevifilum Pk., Rept. N. Y. Mus. 31 : 42, 1879, was estab- 

 lished upon a form with extremely short elaters. In the first edition of 

 the Lister monograph this was included in 0. nitens. Doctor Sturgis, 

 after reexamination of Peck's type, decided that it was a variety of 

 O. flavidum and so published it (Trans. Conn. Ac. 10 : 488, 1900). 

 In the second and third editions of Lister it was included in that 

 species. Miss Baskerville, after examining the available material in 

 the Iowa collections, decided that it should be a variety of nitens 

 (Trans. la. Ac. 38 : 107, 1932). Further examination shows that 

 forms with short elaters may be found in both species, and that they 

 grade imperceptibly into the forms with longer elaters, regarded as 

 typical. The species and the two proposed varieties are therefore 

 regarded as unnecessary. 



Both this and the following species develop on wood and litter in 

 moist places, and not rarely directly on moist earth under fallen logs. 



Fairly common. New England to British Columbia and North 

 Carolina, Alabama, California; Europe, North Africa. 



3. Oligonema nitens (Lib.) Rost. 



Mon. 291. 1875. 

 PI. XVIII, Figs. 481, 489. 



1834. Trichia nitens Lib., PL Crypt. Add. Fasc. 3, No. 277, non Pers. 



1873. Physarum schweinitzii Berk., Grev. 2 : 66. 



1873. Cornuvia nitens (Lib.) Rost., Versuch 15. 



1876. Trichia kickxii Rost., Mon. App. 40. 



1879. Trichia bavarica de Thiim., Myc. Univ. No. 1497. 



1885. Trichia pusilla Schroet., Krypt. Fl. Schles. 3 (1) : 114, non Poiret. 



1888. Oligonema bavaricum (de Thiim.) Balf. & Berl. in Sacc. Syll. 7 : 437. 



Sporangia bright yellow, shining, sessile, irregularly spherical, up 

 to 0.5 mm. in diameter, usually crowded into dense clusters and often 

 superimposed; peridium thin, marked with fan-like tracery, sometimes 

 with warts; capillitium of short elaters, mostly 100-150 £i long and 

 3-4 ix wide, simple or branched, smooth or marked with occasional 

 rings or faint dextrorse spirals; apices either blunt or with an apiculus, 

 the latter 4-6 ju long and usually bent; spores irregularly reticulate, 

 the bands pitted, 12-14 fx. 



The small, glistening, heaped sporangia, the smoother elaters, with 

 sinistrorse spirals and the pitted spore bands distinguish it from 

 O. flavidum. Forms with very short elaters occur, as in that species. 



Canada and New England to California and south to Florida and 



