The Myxomycetes of Eastern Iowa. 153 



in masses of decaying leaves or in rotten logs. The Plasmo- 

 dium at first colorless; as it emerges for fructification white, 

 then yellow, spreading far over all adjacent objects, not spar- 

 ing the leaves and flowers of living plants; at evening slime, 

 spreading, streaming, changing; by morning fruit, a thousand 

 stalked sporangia with their strangely convoluted sculpture. 

 The evening winds again bear off the sooty spores and naught 

 remains but twisted yellow stems crowned with a pencil of 

 tufted silken hairs. August. 



LEOCARPUS, Link. 



Sporangia sessile or short-stipitate. Peridium double; the 

 outer thick, breaking stellately or irregularly, the inner very 

 delicate, enclosing the capillitium with the spores. Tubes of 

 the capillitium reticulately joined, the knots, some delicate 

 filled with air, others with calcareous granules. 



54. Leocarpus fragilis, Dickson. Plate VIII, Figs. 3, 3(7 

 and 3/^. 

 Sporangia gregarious or clustered, sessile or stipitate, ob- 

 ovoid, rusty or spadiceous yellow, shining. Peridium opening 

 at maturit}' in somewhat stellate fashion. Stipe filiform, white 

 or yellow, weak and short. Spores dull black, spinulose, 

 .012-.014. 



The only species; distributed through all the world, Iowa 

 to Tasmania. Recognizable at sight by the form and color 

 of the sporangia. In shape and posture these resemble the 

 eggs of certain insects, and, occurring upon dead leaves, gen- 

 erally where these have drifted against a rotten log, they 

 might perchance be mistaken for such structures. With no 

 other Slime-mould are they likely to be confused. The outer 

 peridium opens steUately, the divisions reflected as in No. 49, 

 so that the entire structure simulates a flower. At center 

 of the capillitium is a calcareous core. The plasmodium is 

 yellowish-white, spread in rich and beautiful reticulations. 



