STEMONITIS] STEMONITACBAE 149 



5. S. pallida Wingate in Macbr. N. Am. Slime-Moulds, 

 123 (1899). Plasmodium ? Total height 5 to 6*T Sporangia 

 scattered or clustered in small groups, cylindrical on short 

 stalks, violet-brown ; resembling S. herbatica, but differing 

 in the scattered habit, the uneven pale surface net of the capilli- 

 tium, and the firmer walled spores that assume a " coffee- 

 bean " shape when dry.— Wingate in Ellis & Everh. N. Am. Up 

 Fungi, no. 3498 (1897). S. tenerrima Morg. Myx. Miami 

 Valley, 53 (1894). S. carolinensis Macbr. I.e., 122. 



PI. 120. — h. sporangia (Philadelphia) ; i. capillitium ; k. I. spores, two are con- 

 tracted and show the "coffee-bean" shape. 



Hah. On dead wood.— Pennsylvania (B.M. 1748) ; Georgia (B.M. 



2558) ; Alabama (B.M. 2559) ; South Carolina (B.M. 2560) ; Japan 



(B.M. 2564). 



6. S. fiavogenita Jahn in Abh. Bot. Ver. Brandenb., xlv. 

 165 (1904). Plasmodium translucent citron-yellow. Total 

 height 5 to 7 mm. Sporangia cylindrical, obtuse, in closely 

 fasciculate clusters, shortly stalked or nearly sessile, cinnamon- 

 brown. Stalk black, 0-5 to 1-5 mm. high. Columella often 

 ceasing below the summit of the sporangium. Capillitium 

 of ferruginous or brown threads, springing from the columella, 

 and forming a loose network with numerous broad mem- 

 branous expansions ; meshes of the delicate spinose super- 

 ficial net angular, rather uneven, varying from 6 to 16 diam. 

 Spores pale ferruginous, faintly warted, 7 to 9 p diam. — 

 Lister in Journ. Bot., xlii. 135" (1904) ; Ton-end Fl. Myx., 

 144. 8. ferruginea Fr. Syst. Myc, hi. 158 (1829), in part ; 

 Rost. Mon., p. 196, in part ; Mass. Mon., 85, in part ; Lister 

 Mycetozoa, 114. 



PI. 119. — a. sporangia (England) ; b. capillitium ; c. capillitium and columella, 

 the latter e ipanded to form a membranous cap at the apex of the sporangium ; 

 d. spore. 



This species is abundant in the British Isles, and appears to be not, 

 uncommon in Europe, but has not been found hitherto elsewhere. 

 It is allied on the one hand to S. herbatica, and on the other to S.. 

 ferruginea under which species it was included by the earlier authors ; 

 from the former it is distinguished by the delicate spinose surface net 

 of the capillitium and ferruginous spores, and from the latter by the 

 shortly stalked sporangia and larger spores measuring 7 to 9 /a ; from 

 both it differs in the yellow colour of the plasmodium. In the first 

 edition of the present work this species is described under the name 

 of S. ferruginea Ehrenb., but Dr. Jahn's researches have shown the 

 type of the latter, preserved in the Berlin Museum, to be the following 

 small-spored species, which was described as S. Smithii Macbr. in 

 Mycetozoa, p. 115. Neither Fries nor Rostafinski distinguished the 

 present species from S. ferruginea, the colour of whose plasmodium 

 they describe as yellow. 



Hab. On dead wood and leaves ; the plasmodium often creeps 

 from the place of emergence and matures on the surrounding herbage. — 

 Lyme Regis, Dorset (B.M. 1380) ; Leigh-Wood, Somerset (B.M 206) ; 



