The Myxomycetes of Eastern Iowa. 119 



This most dainty little species is so perfectly differentiated 

 as scarcely to need further description. The deep red Plas- 

 modium at first sends up the columnar stipe, up which the 

 plasma creeps, swells into a tiny sphere which forms peridial 

 wall and spores, with all the delicate tracery of the net, as if 

 by simple dessication. Year after year it re-appears in almost 

 the same locality. An old decadent apple-stump affords at 

 once nutrition and protection, and there, after some summer 

 shower the fortunate observer may witness, even in the course 

 of a single day, a transformation rare. 



The species has a wide range, extending from Iowa to 

 Ceylon, and would seem cosmopolitan. The wood of various 

 conifers, however, is said to afford a habitat preferred, and the 

 range is probably conterminous with the coniferous forests 

 of the globe. 



CRIBRARIA, Per soon. 



Sporangia, separate, generally stalked. Peridia persistently 

 cup-shaped below, above affected by reticulate thickenings 

 which give rise at length to an overarching net of various 

 rather large polygonal meshes. 



8. Cribraria intricata, Schrader. Plate I, Figs. 5, 51? 

 and 5<5. 

 Sporangia stalked, globular, pale ochre or yellowish-brown; 

 stem subulate, tapering upwards, expanded above into the 

 shallow cup-like serrated base of the peridium, the so-called 

 "receptacle." The net with strongly developed polygonal 

 nodes, joined by delicate threads two or more in number, per- 

 sisting. Spores pale, .006-.007, the surface slightly roughened. 



A rather common species occurring on all sorts of habitats, 

 rotting stumps, logs, pine boards, fences, etc. The isolated 

 sporangia are sometimes very numerous, distributed over an 

 area several inches in each direction. The nodes of the 

 net are black, the spider-web connecting threads, transparent, 

 glassy. 



