SPECIMENS IN OUR COLLECTION. 



Australia, F. M. Reader. 

 Japan, T. Yoshinaga. 



A LARGE FORM FROM WASHINGTON (Fig. 12). 

 We have from T. C. Frye what we consider a large form 

 of Nidula microspora, although the cups are more than twice 

 as large as the usual form, and some spores are consider- 

 ably larger, measuring 6 x 12. We hardly feel that the form 

 is worthy of a name even as a form, as the size of the cups 

 is a much varying factor in most species of Nidulariaceae. 



Fig. 12."" SPECIMENS IN OUR COLLECTION. 



Washington, T. C. Frye. 



NIDULA EMODENSIS (Plate 103). Peridium cup-shaped, with 

 a somewhat spreading mouth, white, shaggy-tomentose. Peridioles 

 about i mm. in diameter, reddish brown, wrinkled when dry. Outer 

 peridiole wall thick, of rigid, woven, colored fibrils, which have many 

 short, spiny branches. (We have not met this structure in any other 

 species of Nidulariaceae.) Spores ovate, 4x8. 



There is an abundant collection of this species from Sikkim, in 

 the Himalayas, India, in Hooker's herbarium at Kew. It has a close, 

 general resemblance to Nidula Candida of Canada, but differs from 

 all species known to me, in the peculiar, spiny, branched fibrils of the 

 outer peridiole wall. It was described as Cyathus emodensis, and 

 while the discovery of the "new species" was of interest, it would have 

 been of more general interest had the author discovered that he had 

 a "new genus," very different in the nature of the peridioles from the 

 genus Cyathus in which it was placed. 



NIDULA GRANULIFERA. While we have never seen a specimen of 

 the genus Nidula from Europe, we feel confident that the plant illustrated 

 in Holmskjold's Beata Rur. (T. 4, f. 2), about a hundred years ago, was 

 drawn for a Nidula. As to species, of course, the plate tells nothing, and it 

 will probably prove to be one of the species recently described from America. 



THE GENUS CRUCIBULUM. 



Peridium cup-shaped, composed of a single, thick, uniform layer, 

 lined on the inner side with a very thin, often silvery lining, which 

 is said to be the "remnant of the mucilaginous matter that fills the ' 

 cup," but appears to me to be a distinct, but very thin membrane. 

 When young the mouth is covered with an epiphragm, yellow tomen- 

 tose on the surface. Peridioles numerous, filling the 'cup. attached 

 to the cup by a simple funiculus, which can be extended at length 

 when moist. Tunica, a loosely woven, thick, 14 easilv ruptured mem- 

 brane. Peridioles (deprived of tunica) black. The walls of the 

 peridiole are 90-100 mm. thick, closely woven, black externally, but the 

 inner portion subtransparent. The interior of the peridiole is hyaline, 



14 Compared to the tunica of all other Nidulariaceae. 

 12 





