94 ENDOSPOREAE [CRATERIUM 



B. Sporangium-wall mealy, often rugose ; lid less distinct or 



indefinite : — 



Sporangia violet. 3. C. paraguayense 



Sporangia brown, powdered with white in the upper 

 part. 4. C. leucocephalum 



Sporangia bright yellow. 5. C. aureum 



1. C. minutum Fries Syst. Myc., iii. 151 (1829). Plasmodium 

 rich yellow. Total height 0-7 to 1-5 mm. Sporangia goblet- 

 shaped, stalked, erect, gregarious, 0-4 to 1*2 mm. high, 

 smooth, pale ochraceous, nut-brown or olive-brown ; lid 

 convex or flat, sometimes depressed, white or concolorous 

 with the sporangium ; sporangium-wall of two layers, the 

 outer cartilaginous, thickened at the rim below the lid, 

 translucent below and continued into the translucent stalk, 

 the inner layer densely charged with white lime-granules ; 

 lime almost absent in the olive-brown form. Stalk cylindrical, 

 plicate, 0-3 to 0*5 mm. long, dark brown, orange-brown or 

 yellowish, rising from a circular hypothallus. Capillitium con- 

 sisting of delicate colourless or yellow threads connecting 

 numerous large white lime-knots, some of which often com- 

 bine in the centre to form a pseudo-columella. Spores violet- 

 brown, minutely warted, 8 to 9 fx diam. — Rost. Mon., p. 120 ; 

 Macbr. N. Am. Slime-Moulds, 78. Peziza minuta Leers 

 Fl. Herborn., 277 (1775). Craterium pedunculatum Trentep. 

 in Roth Catal. Bot., i. 224 (1797) ; Lister Mycetozoa, 70. 



C. vulgar e Ditm. in Sturm Deutsch. Fl., Pilze, i. 17, t. 9 

 (1813) ; Rost. I.e., p. 118. C. pyriforme Ditm. I.e., p. 19 r 

 t. 10 ; Rost. I.e., p. 120. C. turbinatum Fr. I.e., 152. C. 

 Oerstedtii Rost. I.e., p. 120 (1875). C. Friesii Rost. I.e., p. 

 122. C. confusum Mass. Mon., 263 (1892). Sphaerocarpa 

 operculata Schum. Enum. PI. Saell., ii. 220 (1803). 

 Physarum turbinatum Schum. I.e., 205. 



PI. 78. — a. b. c. sporangia of various shapes (Dorset) ; d. capillitium and spores 

 with a fragment of sporangium-wall ; e. spore. 



Observations on the development of sporangia from extensive 

 Plasmodia in leaf-heaps and in cultivations show that the varieties 

 in shape and colour described by Rostafinski under the names of 

 C. vulgare, C. pyriforme, C. minutum, and G. Friesii may arise from one 

 source, and no specific characters appear to exist to separate the four 

 forms. In examination of the type specimen of C. Oerstedtii in the 

 Strassburg He r barium no character was observed to distinguish it 

 from the present species ; the sporangia are pyriform, and yellow- 

 brown ; no lid remains attached to a sporangium, but it is described 

 as white ; the capillitium resembles that met with in most forms of 

 G. minutum ; a distinct pseudo-columella is present. Specimens from 

 America are mostly of a dark olive colour, somewhat small in size, 



