NOTES ON MYCETOZOA 



87 



Chondrioderma lucidum Cke. A gathering of twenty- seven 

 sporangia of this rare species was made on September 28th, 1900, 

 at Llan-y-Mawddwy, Merionethshire. On the previous day bright 

 yellow Plasmodium just rising into fruit was observed on the under 

 surface of a taft of Hi/pmun loreum on the side of a rocky ravine. 

 On the 29th the nearly globose sporangia had matured. They are 

 lustrous rich orange in colour, and either sessile or on short dark 

 brown stalks 0-1-0-3 mm. long; the capillitium is scanty, and con- 

 sists of a coarse network of purple-brown strands, similar to that in 

 Berkeley and Broome's original type of Didenna lucidum from 

 Trefriw (figured in the Brit. Mus. Cat. PI. xxxv.). The sporangium- 

 wall is unusually translucent for one of the Leangium group, and in 

 making preparations for the microscope in glycerine jelly, a yellow 

 stain immediately flows out into the medhim ; the columella is 

 obconic, and of a warm cream-colour ; the spores are dark purple- 

 brown, distinctly spinulose, 14-15 /x diam. This new gathering 

 corresponds with the type in all essential particulars, and is 

 interesting as confirming the integrity of the species, which 

 before rested solely on the Trefriw specimen in which the 

 remarkable capillitium suggested an abnormal development. 



Chondrioderma Trevelyani Eost. Mr. J. Jackol, of Seattle, 

 Wash., U.S.A., has sent me a number of specimens of Mycetozoa 

 gathered in that neighbourhood during the last year ; among them 

 is one of C. Trevehimii ; the sporangia are all expanded, the lobes 

 of the sporangium-walls being reflexed in an irregularly stellate 

 manner, A point of some interest attaches to this growth, as in 

 several of the sporangia, but by no means in all, a small knot pro- 

 jects from the centre, corresponding with the drawing and description 

 by Greville of the original type gathered by Trevelyan. He speaks 

 of a " very small columella " being present. Berkeley saw the type, 

 and wrote, '^ I find no trace of a columella ; the bottom of the peri- 

 thecium within is perfectly even." My own examination of what 

 remains of Trevelyan's specimen and of eight others that have 

 come under my notice confirmed Berkeley's view, but Mr. Jackol's 

 gathering affords convincing evidence that Greville was right with 

 regard to some of the sporangia now missing in the type specimen ; 

 at the same time, it is not a columella in the true sense of the word, 

 but rather an excrescence, and is not always central. 



Diach^a elegans Fr. In June, 1900, Mr. D. MacAlpine sent 

 from Melbourne a good specimen of D. elegans. He mentions it as 

 occurring on several herbaceous plants, and it is probably not un- 

 common in the district. I am not aware of a previous record of 

 the species having been obtained in Australia. It is the typical 

 form which is found without variation in Europe, Asia, the Cape 

 and Central Africa, and in North and South America. 



DiDYMiuM DUBiuM Rost. Amongst the dense growth of creeping 

 ivy that covers the w^ooded dell on the Undercliff at Lyme Regis 

 where we first gathered this species in 1888, and at all times of the 

 year when the locality has been searched, the flat sporangia are 



