48 ENDOSPOREAE [PHYSARUM 



5. P. luteo-album Lister in Journ. Bot., xlii. 130, t. 459, 

 fig. 2 (1904). Plasmodium ? Sporangia stalked, gregarious, 

 subghjbose, about 1 mm. broad, 07 mm. high, yellow shading 

 into white, deep orange or olivaceous, smooth or rugulose ; 

 sporangium-wall pale yellow or orange, with dense or scanty 

 deposits of yellow lime -granules. Stalk stout, smooth, 0-5 

 to 1 mm. long, 0-2 mm. thick, bright yellow or orange above, 

 nearly white below, either cylindrical and densely charged 

 with lime-granules throughout, or narrowed towards the base 

 and the lime there in the form of crystalline nodules. 

 Columella large, subglobose oi shortly clavate, pale yellow or 

 orange. Capillitium either of very slender pale yellow threads, 

 branching at acute angles and anastomosing, or of broad 

 yellow simple or forked strands, persistent after the dispersion 

 of the spores ; lime-knots few, small, yellow, linear or 

 fusiform. Spores purple-brown, strongly spinulose, 10 to 12 /j. 

 diam. 



PI. 24. — a. sporangia ; b. capillitium and spores ; c. spore ; (Ventimiglia). 



This well-marked species was first gathered in January, 1903, by 

 Miss Constance Pirn, who found about twenty pale yellow sporangia 

 on pine needles, in the gardens of Sir T. Hanbury, La Mortola, Venti- 

 miglia. Since then a form agreeing in all essentials with the type, 

 but with orange or olive-coloured sporangia, has been found in abund- 

 ance on the shores of the Kolksee, E. Holstein, by Dr. H. Ronn, in an 

 akjer wood, in the winter of 1909-1910. The same form was 

 obtained near Lyme Regis, in March, 1910, on dead alder and bramble 

 leaves in a boggy copse In these later gatherings the sporangia are 

 either scattered or united in pairs ; the sporangium-walls have usually 

 scanty deposits of lime, and readily fall away, leaving a collar-like rim 

 round the base of the columella, and exposing the persistent brush of 

 yellow capillitium ; the lime-knots are usually very slender, and often 

 consist merely of a row of lime-granules enclosed in a thread of the 

 capillitium ; the strongly spinulose spores are rather paler than in the 

 La Mortola specimen (see P. luteo-album var. aureum Ronn in Schrift. 

 Naturw. Ver. Schles.-Holst., xv. 51). 



Hab. On pine needles.— Devon (B.M. 31S7); Italy (B.M. 2099); 

 Bolstein (B.M. 3186). 



6. P. globuliferum Pers. Syn., 175 (1801). Plasmodium ? 

 Total height 1 to 1-5 mm. Sporangia gregarious, globose, 

 stalked, erect, white, 0*5 mm. diam. ; sporangium-wall 

 membranous, with crowded clusters of included lime-granules. 

 Stalk white or pale buff, sometimes red-brown towards the 

 base, 0*5 to 1 mm. long, 0*05 to 0-1 mm. thick, nearly smooth, 

 brittle, chalky in section. Columella conical. Capillitium 

 persistent, retaining the form of the sporangium after the 

 dispersion of the spores, forming a close network of widely 

 branching hyaline threads with numerous fusiform or rounded 

 white lime-knots 10 to 20 diam. Spores violet-brown, 

 almost smooth, 6 to 8 /x diam. — Rost. Mon., p. 98, fig. 86 ; 



