244 Transactions British Mycological Soctety. 
depth of colour and in opacity just before the formation of 
sporangia. One doubtful gathering turned out to be this species 
with lime-knots yellower than typical. 
Physarum columbinum (Berk. and Curt.) Sturgis (syn. P. com- 
pactum Lister). This I have gathered twice, once near the base 
of an old jungle stump in Johore, a part of the colony being on 
the soil. The stump was one of many left after felling in the 
course of clearing. Most of the sporangia had either been eaten 
or knocked off. On the second occasion I found an extremely 
large colony consisting of many thousands of sporangia; they 
are dull grey in colour and deeply umbilicate above, so that I 
at first regarded them as Physarum javamicum Racib. The stalks 
are often very short and are dull yellow in colour; the enclosed 
lime is not in granules as usual, but is compacted into large 
crystalline nodules. The plasmodium, a large anastomosing net- 
work of somewhat thick, dirty grey opaque veins, resembled 
that of Physarum nutans Pers. This was spread over the base 
of an old Ficus stump and on the damp earth near the edge of 
the jungle. 
P. viride Pers. P. viride var. incanum Lister. 
P. viride var. aurantium Lister. P. viride var. rigidum Lister. 
This species with its varieties appears to be the commonest 
representative of the genus in tropical Malaya. The type is I 
think less common than the varieties; var. auvantium is very 
frequent on the leaf-bases of coconut palms, generally on the 
inner surfaces; var. i7ucanum occurs in similar situations to 
the preceding, and much more rarely on fallen leaf-bases of 
some other palms; var. rigidum is by far the commonest form, 
immense colonies appearing with great regularity, and very 
frequently on Schizophyllum commune which 1s a frequent sapro- 
phyte on Hevea and other timbers. Twice I have seen small 
developments of this variety on species of polypores (see 
Pp. 299). 
P. auriscalpium Cooke. This species occurs, but not commonly, 
on the leaf-bases of palms, usually while the leaf-stalks still 
remain attached to the trunk. Several times I found small 
colonies on bunches of dead leaves of Passiflora sp. and Gar- 
denta sp. which were either suspended from or caught in the 
fork of a tree. Once a colony appeared on a stripped surface 
trunk of Hevea. The cortex had been removed from a portion 
of the stem as an experiment, leaving only the cambium and 
a few layers of cells covering the woody tissue. The regenerated 
cortex was killed by an inoculation with a fungus and the | 
resulting diseased tissue yielded a fine colony of Physarum 
auriscalpium three weeks after stripping. I failed to notice the 
plasmodium. On several occasions large colonies of this species 
