28 THE NORTH AMERICAN SLIME-MOULDS 



which varies in texture, thickness, and color; capillitium well devel- 

 oped but variable in color, form, and extent; spore-mass dull black, 

 sooty; spores spherical, purplish brown, nearly smooth, 7-9 fi. 



Under this name may be placed our most common form. Rising 

 with an abundant yellowish creamy Plasmodium from masses of 

 decaying vegetation, lumber, sawdust, half buried logs, it creeps 

 about with energy unsurpassed, coming to rest only in some posi- 

 tion specially exposed, as the top of a log or stump, the face of 

 a stone or post, or even the high clods of a cultivated field! The 

 fructification is large, yellow, or at most pale ochraceous, the 

 surface when mature extremely friable like dry foam. Bulliard 

 figures this phase well on Plate 424, Fig. 2, and calls it Reticularia 

 {Fuliffo) hortensis, from its affecting the soils of gardens. More 

 than thirty fructifications have appeared at one time, varying in size 

 from one to twenty cm. in a field of potatoes, well tilled, and less 

 than an acre in extent! Such is life's perennial exuberance on this 

 time-worn old world of ours! 



Schaeflfer's plate CXI I represents probably the same thing. So also 

 Bolton's plate, CXXXIV. Sowerby's Fig. 2 on plate 199, and 

 figures 1 and 2 on Greville's plate 272 possibly also depict this form. 

 Persoon calls this F. vaporaria because it frequents hotbeds and the 

 like, and believes this to represent the "untuosus flavus" of Linnee, 

 although he thinks Schasflfer's specimens do not. The calcareous in- 

 ternal structure is white. 



2. Form b, F. rufa Pers. 



This type of Fuligo is very diflferent from the preceding in form, 

 habit, and color. In form it is much more definite, usually thick, 

 well-rounded and with some solidity. The interior fructification is 

 gray throughout, much less expanded than in a; in fact does not 

 resemble a at all ! The cortex is porose but firm, orange at first, but 

 becoming tawny with age, even in the herbarium. Bulliard figures 

 it well, plate 380, Fig. 1, and Sowerby's Fig. 1 on plate 399 is also 

 good, as are also Greville's figure 3 on plate 272 showing the two 

 colors referred to. Not uncommon in the forest from June till 

 September, but far more rare than a: always well-marked, with no 

 other forms associated. 



