130 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



found a beautiful development of this on worm-casts on the 

 ground at Agege ; he also obtained it in rich, deep orange 

 Plasmodium at Ibadan on a palm-trunk and on the ground ; 

 part of this matured normally ; part developing ratiier later under 

 drier conditions broke up into irregular flat discoid masses with 

 somewhat incurved margins ; all stages between these and typical 

 tubular,- stalked sporangia were found. The capillitium is quite 

 normal in all the specimens, consisting of numerous slender, 

 sparingly branched hyaline threads, and large spike-like yellow 

 lime-knots. 



DiDERMA EFFUSUM (Schwcin) Morgan. Found several times 

 at Ibadan in large masses on dead leaves, and on the fibres of 

 wine-palm {Baphia vinifera Beauv.), developing from watery 

 pinkish-white plasmodium. The white sporangia are rounded and 

 crowded, less often scattered and forming elongated plasmo- 

 diocarps. 



DiACH^A LEUCOPOUA (Bull.) Eost. Ibadan, on roots of oil- 

 palm, and in one case spreading over a Crucihulum that was 

 growing on the palm ; found also in great abundance on a heap 

 of decaying hedge-clippings. The cylindrical sporangia are 

 mounted on long w^iite stalks nearly 1 mm. high ; the spores 

 are minutely warted, 7 to 8/x diam. 



Diachsea radial a G. Lister & Fetch, n. sp. (Flate 541, fig. 2). 

 Flasmodium orange-yellow. Sporangia closely gregarious or 

 crowded, hemispherical or globose, O'l to 0*5 mm. diam., iri- 

 descent-grey or bronze, sessile, rarely shortly stalked, seated on 

 a white hypothallus which either forms a continuous sheet or 

 consists of branching radiating veins or small circular patches ; 

 sporangium-wall membranous, colourless : stalks when present 

 short, stout, furrowed, O'l to 0-2 mm. high, white, and like the 

 hypothallus densely charged with granules of lime : columella 

 white, convex, conical or shortly cylindrical ; capillitium a net- 

 work of slender purple-brown threads radiating from the columella; 

 spores pale violet-grey, spinulose, 8 to 11 /x diam. Habitat on 

 dead leaves and sticks, Ceylon and Nigeria. This species was 

 first collected in 1910 near Trincomalee, Ceylon, by Mr. E. Ernest 

 Green, the Government Entomologist, who brought it to the 

 Government Mycologist, Mr. Fetch. The latter sent specimens 

 to me expressing the view that it might be a new species on 

 account of the sporangia being nearly all sessile and the spores 

 larger, rather rougher, and paler than in D. lencopoda, its nearest 

 ally. The numerous gatherings of this form obtained at Ibadan 

 by Mr. Farquharson in the spring of 1915 fully establish its 

 constancy ; he supplies a further distinguishing character by his 

 observation that the plasmodium is orange-yellow, not white as 

 in D. leucopoda. He describes how it first emerges from the soil 

 in circular patches formed of slender veins which branch and 

 radiate in a somewhat dendritic manner, and cover an area from 

 three to five inches across. He writes: "It had been living, I 

 think, on decaying bean-stalks (DolicJios sp.), which had been 

 dug into the ground for green manure. It emerged in the early 



