FULIGO 29 



3. Form c, F. laevis Pers. 



This is a still more specialized type of the group. The fructifica- 

 tion is usually small, smooth, about an inch in diameter and some- 

 times nearly as thick; the cortex rusty brown, enduring, persisting 

 often when all the sporiferous grayish mass has been distributed 

 through chinks, or from below. The figure 2 on plate X. shows this 

 form. This also is a forest species, is autumnal rather, but may be 

 taken sometimes as early as July. The cortex is not at all porose or 

 spongy, in color reddish or brown, fragile indeed, but not to the 

 touch, in the herbarium enduring for years. 



4. Form d, F. flava Pers. 



This is hardly F. flava of Persoon; rather of Morgan who uses 

 Persoon's specific designation. Persoon cites Bolton's fig. CXXXIV, 

 which is yellow indeed but is the ordinary presentation of F. septica. 

 The form here considered is remarkable for its delicacy; extremely 

 thin, perhaps one layer only of overlying elongate flexuous sporan- 

 gia (?), covered by the merest shadow of a cortex in the form of 

 yellow dust, soon lost: the capillitial structure yellow throughout; 

 occurring upon fallen logs in moist dark woods; not common. 



5. Form e, F. violacea Pers. 



Plasmodium (Morgan teste) dark red, or wine-colored; the 

 aethalium thin, two or three inches wide, covered by a cortex at first 

 dull red and very soft, at length almost wholly vanishing, so that the 

 entire mass takes on a purple-violet tint, upper surface varied with 

 white; capillitium rather open, the more or less inflated, large, ir- 

 regular nodes joined by long, slender, delicate, transparent filaments; 

 spores dark violet, minutely roughened, spherical, about 7.5 /x. 



Ohio, Tennessee. Probably everywhere, but not distinguished 

 from 1. 



Professor Morgan, who gave the genus under consideration much 

 attention, regarded F. violacea as a form particularly well-defined. 

 What the value of plasmodic color as a specific character in general, 

 and how far such character is in the present case definitive, because 

 constant, are points yet to be determined. 



