178 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



stages of separation from one another. Only the chains of oidia 

 are multiseptate. The width of the oidia I find to be 2-4 /* and 

 not 7-8 //,. They are but rarely as wide as the basidiospores. The 

 two-celled oidia are 12-15 fj, long, but chains of these oidia im- 

 perfectly separated from one another may be 45 or even 60 p long. 

 The oidia are usually curved or undulate and are sometimes more 

 or less Y-shaped. In each cell there are usually two small central 

 rounded bright spots, so that the chains of cells are guttulate. 

 The oidia on the exterior of the fruit-body produce a few tiny 

 oval conidia about 2 jj, long. If a red fruit-body be touched into 

 a drop of water on a slide, some of these conidia can usually 

 be found in the drop among the oidia, and occasionally 

 one may find them attached to their oidia. Massee says 

 that the fruit-bodies are " usually barren." Exactly what is 

 meant by this is not clear. As a matter of fact the red 

 fruit-bodies always produce a crop of oidia and never any 

 basidiospores. 



A brief description of Dacryomyces deliquescens, suited for 

 systematic purposes, is as follows : 



DACRYOMYCES DELIQUESCENS Duby. 



Synonym for the oidial stage : Dacryomyces stillatus Nees. 



Basidial fruit-body gelatinous, convex, rounded, or irregular 

 when confluent, often slightly plicate or gyrose, yellow, translucent, 

 1-6 mm. in diameter, basal portion emerging from the wood 

 at the central point. Basidiospores cylindrical, curved, obtuse, 

 12-15 X 5-6 //,, one-celled when discharged from the sterigmata 

 but after lying in water soon becoming triseptate and four-celled. 



Oidial fruit-body gelatinous, convex, mostly hemispherical, 

 not plicate, but when large often irregularly humped up at the 

 surface, bright orange, rather opaque, 1-3 mm. in diameter, basal 

 portion as before. Basidiospores never present. Oidia very 

 numerous, embedded in the outer gelatinous layer which deli- 

 quesces in rainy weather and sets them free, formed in branching 

 chains, cylindrical, curved or flexuose, sometimes forked, usually 

 two-celled but forming chains owing to imperfect separation, width 



