174 ENDOSPOREAE [LINDBLADIA 



Fig. 36. — Dictydium cancellation Macbr. 



a. Group of sporangia. Twice natural size. 



b. Sporangium after the dispersion of spores. Mag- 



nified 20 times. 



Fig. 36. 



Genus 26.— LINDBLADIA Fries Summa Veg. Scand., 449 

 (1849). Sporangia either combined to form an aethalium, or 

 closely compacted ; rarely free, sessile, or stalked ; sporan- 

 gium-wall membranous, uniform, studded with microscopic 

 dark plasmodic granules. 



1. L. effusa Host. Mon., p. 223 (1875). Plasmodium 

 blackish. Sporangia minute, combined to form a more or less 

 complex, effused or pulvinate aethalium, 2 to 10 mm. thick, 

 either black with a cortex of imperfectly developed spores, 

 or umber-brown and the surface formed by the membranous 

 walls of the convex summits of the component sporangia ; 

 hypothallus strongly developed, of membranous, more or less 

 spongy tissue ; sporangium-wall entire or perforated, mem- 

 branous, yellow-brown, uniform, studded with scattered 

 clusters of dark round plasmodic granules, 1 /x diam. Spores 

 ochraceus-brown, faintly warted, 4 to 6 /* diam. — Macbr. N. 

 Am. Slime-Moulds, 154. Licea effusa Ehrenb. Sylv. Myc. 

 Berol., 26 (1818). Lindbladia Tubulina Fr. Summ. Veg. 

 Scand., 449 (1849) ; Lister Mycetozoa, 137. Aethalium atrum 

 Preuss in Linnaea, xxiv. 141 (1851). Tubulina effusa Mass. 

 Mon., 41 (1892). 



Var. simplex Rex in Bot. Gaz., xvii. 202 (1892) : sporangia 

 shortly cylindrical, closely compacted, sessile, rarely free and 

 shortly stalked. — Licea spermoides Berk. & Curt, in Grev., 

 ii. 68 (1873). Physarum caespitosum Peck in Rep. N. York 

 Mus., xxvi. 75 (1874). Perichaena caespitosa Peck I.e., xxxi. 

 57 (1879). Tubulina spermoides Mass. Mon., 37 (1892). T. 

 caespitosa Mass. I.e., 43. 



PI. 137. — a. vertical section of part of a pulvinate aethalium ; b. fragment of 

 sporangium-wall and spores ; c. closely compacted tubular sporangia, var. simplex ; 



d. sessile and stalked sporangia, var. simplex, closely allied to Cribraria argillacea ; 



e. fragment of sporangium-wall and spores of same ; /. spore ; (United States). 



The sporangium-walls in the aethalioid form are usually continuous ; 

 some aethalia however, gathered by Mr. K. Minakata in the province of 

 Kii, Japan, have the walls widely perforated with large rounded 

 openings as in the genus Enteridium. The var. simplex has hitherto 

 been recorded only from the United States and Japan; it was 

 first described by Dr. Rex (I.e.), with a full account of the genus 

 Lindbladia and of the relationship which exists between L. effusa 



