AMAUROCHMTE 151 



This species differs from the preceding, already well known, espe- 

 cially in the capillitial characters. In the older species the capillitial 

 branches fray out, and are only sparingly united into a net extremely 

 lax. In the present form the net is the thing, common to all spo- 

 rangia. The total effect is to lend to the blown-out aethalium a 

 woolly appearance, entirely unlike that of its congener under the same 

 conditions. But until fructification is quite mature, the presence 

 of the collaborating sporangia below is indicated, suggested, by the 

 papillose upper surface. 



The amaurochetes are remarkable in that they appear upon conif- 

 erous wood, logs or lumber, to all appearance undecayed. The spe- 

 cies just described developed abundantly in August on the recently 

 decorticated logs of Pitius ponderosa, on the southwestern slopes of 

 Mt. Rainier, Washington. In logging operations in the locality re- 

 ferred to, the trees are felled often at considerable distance from the 

 mill. They are not infrequently large, 75-120 cm. in diameter. 

 The logs are dragged along the ground, the transportation facilitated 

 by removal of the bark from the new fallen trunk. In a few weeks' 

 time, affected by alternate rain and sun, the whole surface becomes 

 marked with hundreds of minute, almost invisible cracks, and it is in 

 the larger of these that the plasmodium of the present species has its 

 habitat. Hardly any mycologic phenomenon is more surprising than 

 to see Plasmodia rising to fructification, scores at a time, upon a sur- 

 face, new and white, showing otherwise no evidence of any decom- 

 position. Doubtless the persisting cambium, the unused starches, 

 sugars, the wood of the season yet unlignified, afford easily accessible 

 nutrition. 



When this form was first examined in the laboratory its distinct- 

 ness was immediately seen. It was without doubt Fries' cribrose 

 reticularia ; nobody questions that. Under this name, citing Fries' 

 description, specimens were sent out to herbaria as Harvard. Further 

 study of the records, however, soon convinces one familiar with the 

 ontogeny of the case that we are here face to face with the species, 

 described by Alb. & Schw. in their fine Conspectus. Their account 

 of the form, evidently often taken and now described with great care, 

 is entirely clear when read in presence of the facts. It is here sub- 



