MYCETOZOA OF ANTIGUA AND DOMINICA. 115 



B. M. slide ; P. auriscalpium Cke. (Brit. Mus. Cat. Myc. p. 61, 

 PI. xxiii.B, provisionally placed under P. rubiginosum) ; P. suIjjJiu- 

 reum (A. & S.) Sturgis;* Badhamia citrinella Cel. fil., kindly 

 furnished me by Dr. Celakovsky ; the type of Badhamia decipiens in 

 the Strassburg and Kew collections ; and with our own gatherings 

 of P. Berkeleiji from Witley, Surrey, and Lyme Eegis, Dorset. On 

 placing the sixteen camera-lucida drawings of these specimens side . 

 by side, they make so complete and graduated a series that it is 

 difficult to draw definite lines and say this belongs to one species 

 and that to another. For practical purposes, however, it is neces- 

 sary that certain centres should be recognized. In correspondence 

 with Dr. Sturgis he suggests that Badhamia decipiens Berk. & Curt, 

 should stand, as at first described by Berkeley, as a sessile form with 

 true Badhaynia capillitium, and that Physarum auriscalpium Cke. 

 should embrace the stalked or sometimes sessile forms with large 

 branching lime-knots ; P. Berkeleyi Kost. would then include the 

 more slender growths with abundant hyaline threads and small lime- 

 knots. This suggestion appears from the material at our disposal to 

 be a good one, and the three species would be defined as under : — 



Badhamia decipiens. Sporangia subglobose or plasmodiocarps, 

 sessile, yellow or orange-yellow ; sporangium-wall smooth or rugose ; 

 capillitium a coarse network of strands with broad expansions, 

 charged throughout with orange lime-granules ; spores violet-brown, 

 equally and minutely spinulose all over, 10-13 /x diam. 



Physarum auriscalpium. Sporangia subglobose, sessile or stipi- 

 tate, varying in colour from orange-red to orauge-yellow ; sporangium- 

 wall containiug clustered deposits of yellow lime-granules, sometimes 

 with a cracked and squamulose outer layer; stalk red-brown or 

 blackish-brown, translucent ; capillitium of large branching orange- 

 yellow lime-knots connected by few hyaline threads ; spores rather 

 dark violet-brown, minutely spinulose, 9-11 /x diam. 



Physarum Berkeleyi. Sporangia globose, hemispherical or sub- 

 pyriform, stipitate, erect or nodding, yellow or grey with a yellow 

 base, or iridescent from the absence of lime (when it is the form 

 described by Berkeley as P. flavicomum) ; sporangium-wall mem- 

 branous, smooth or rugose with innate clusters of lime-granules, 

 often thickened and orange-red at the base, or destitute of lime and 



* Dr. Sturgis, of the Agric. Exp. Station, New Haven, Conn., U.S.A., has 

 kindly sent me a specimen of the species he has described and figured as Phy- 

 sarum sul])liureum Alb. & Schw. (Bot. Gazette, xviii. 187). In a former letter to 

 me he says: "there can be little doubt that it is identical with the scanty 

 specimen under that name in the Schweinitz Collection, and it is fair to 

 presume that Schweinitz had sufficient grounds for considering his American 

 specimen to be identical with that found in Europe." The original description 

 of the stalk of the European type of P. sulphureum is as follows: — " Stipes e 

 basi crassa in formam exacte conicam attenuatus, albus " (Albertini and 

 Schweinitz, Conspectus Fungorum, p. 93, publ. 1805). This description is 

 inapplicable to any member of the group we are dealing with, in which the 

 stalk, when present, is translucent, and orange or red-brown ; the term " albus" 

 implies that the conical stalk was charged with lime, as in P. nielleum Mass. 

 Comparison shows that Dr. Sturgis's P. sulphureum is the same species as 

 P. auriscalpium Cke., and, considering the uncertainty that attaches to the 

 former name, he now proposes that P. auriscalpium Cke. should stand as repre- 

 senting this American form. g. 2 



