120 ENDOSPOREAE [DIACHAEA 



3. D. splendens Peck in Rep. N. York Mus. Nat. Hist., 

 xxx. £0 (1878). Sporangia metallic blue ; otherwise similar to 

 the globose form of D. leucopoda, except that the spores are 

 marked with dark raised bands and tubercles. — Mass. Mon., 

 261 ; Macbride N. Am. Slime-Moulds, 135. 



PI. 99. — d. sporangia (New York) ; e. capillitium and spores ; /. spores. 



Hob. On dead leaves, sticks, etc. — Philadelphia (B.M. 1320) ; 

 Xew Haven, Conn. (B.M. 1321) ; Iowa (B.M. 1322). 



4. D. subsessilis Peck in Rep. N. York Mus. Nat. Hist., 

 xxxi. 41 (1879). Plasmodium yellow. Sporangia gregarious, 

 globose, - 5 mm. diam., stalked, rarely sessile and forming 

 short plasmodiocarps, shining iridescent-purple or bronze ; 

 sporangium-wall membranous, colourless. Stalk stout, 

 conical, white and filled either with lime-granules or crystalline 

 nodules of lime, or brown and without lime, 0*2 to OS mm. 

 high. Columella conical, white, yellowish or brown, rarely 

 obsolete. Capillitium radiating from the columella and con- 

 sisting of branched and anastomosing purple-brown threads, 

 usually stouter and paler below, slender and colourless at the 

 tips. Spore- walls purplish-grey with yellow contents giving 

 a purplish-green effect, reticulated with rows of close-set 

 minute warts, forming a net with about six meshes across the 

 hemisphere, 7 to 10 /x. — Mass. Mon., 262; Rex in Proc. Acad. 

 Nat. Sci. Phil., 1893, 368 ; Burrell in Trans. Norf. Nat. Soc, 

 vi. 449, plate ; Petch in Ann. R. Bot. Gard. Perad., iv. 347. 



PI. 100. — a. sporangia with white stalks (Bedfordshire) ; b. sporangia with short 

 black stalks, and sessile sporangia ; c. capillitium and spores ; d. spore. 



This species has now been obtained from many parts of the world. 

 Sporangia with limeless stalks, dark from enclosed refuse matter, 

 are often found associated with others having the stalks white and 

 containing lime-granules only. When the limeless form occurs alone 

 it resembles a Lamproderma externally, but may at once be distin- 

 guished by the_ membranous stalk and columella. Through the 

 courtesy of Dr. Celakovsky we have seen a glycerine preparation of 

 Lamproderma Fuckelianum Rost. var. cracowense Racib. ; it appears 

 to be a form of the present species without lime in the membranous 

 columella and short stalk ; the spores are purplish-grey, empty of 

 protoplasmic contents, and are closely reticulated with delicate raised 

 lines. The type of L. Fuckelianum Rost. (Mon., p. 208, t. xiii, 

 fig. 6) is not represented in the quoted collections, but Rostafinski's 

 illustration exactly represents the black-stalked limeless form of D. 

 xuhsessilia ; in the absence of the type of L. Fuckelianum however, 

 it would seem better to retain Peck's specific name although it is of 

 later date. 



Hob. On dead leaves and twigs. — Flitwick, Beds (B.M. 1705) ; 

 Holt, Norfolk (B.M. 1706) ; Pitlochrie, N.B. (B.M. 2457) ; near Paris 

 (B.M. 2454) ; N. Germany (B.M. 2455) ; Ceylon (B.M. 2456) ; Antigua 

 (B.M. slide); Poquonnock, Conn. (B.M. 2458). 



