Tilmadoche. 335 



About 2 mm. high, stem straight or curved, thin, sporangium 

 typically cylindric-oblong, broadly and deeply umbilicate at the 

 apex ; there is no trace of a columella. The present species 

 appears to be inclined to sport. Mr. Harold Wingate, of 

 Philadelphia, has sent me a fine series of forms of the present 

 species passing from the typical form described above to speci- 

 mens that are much larger, with a shorter, thicker, red stem, 

 which is in some instances branched and bearing 3 5 sporangia. 

 These vary in form from the typical condition, through cyathi- 

 form to broadly funnel-shaped, with a recurved, often flexuous 

 margin, externally reddish-brown, internally orange-yellow ; in 

 these forms the umbilicus has become so deeply. depressed that 

 the cavity of the sporangium is almost obliterated. It is the 

 inner depressed apical portion of the sporangium that Peck 

 describes as a spurious, hollow columella; he has obviously 

 formed the genus Physarella from an abnormal condition of the 

 present species. 



Tilmadoche gyrocephala, Host. 



Sporangia irregularly Idbed or lacunose, often compressed and 

 umbilicate below, stipitate, wall thin, covered with irregular 

 yellow or greenish-yellcnv scales of lime ; stem elongated, tapering 

 upwards, weak and often curved, irregularly rugulose, passing 

 downwards into a thin, wrinkled hypothallus, bright yellow or 

 orange ; columella absent ; capillitium well developed, forming a 

 loose net, nodes elongated, filled with yellow granules of lime, 

 internodes long, thin; spores globose, minutely warted, dingy, 

 lilac, 7 9 11 diameter. 



Didymium gyrocephalum, Mont., Ann. Sci. Nat., Ser. II. 

 vol. viii., p. 362; Mont., Syll., n. 1073. 



Tilmadoche gyrocephala (Mont.), Rost., Mon., p. 131 ; Sacc., 

 Syll., vol. vii., pt. I., n. 1248; Mass., Journ. Myc., vol. v., p. 187, 

 t. 14, f. 8 (1889). 



Cribraria staminiformis, Speg., Fung. Arg., Pug. II., n. 109. 



Exsicc. Rav., Fung. Amer., n. 477 (as Physarum Schumacheri, 

 Spr.). 



