152 THE NORTH AMERICAN SLIME-MOULDS 



mitted, as less easy of access but essential, if the reader would appre- 

 ciate the present disposal of the species. 



"S. Tubulina nobis 



"S. magna pulvinata subhemisphaerica, stylidiis gregartis circin- 

 antibus, capillitiis elongatis cylindraceis in massam pulveraceam fus- 

 cam connatis, apicibus obtusis, prominulis , lucidis nigris. 



"The size indeed, the circumscribed form, the capillitiums con- 

 joined into a single body — indue this (form) with an appearance 

 peculiar to a degree ; however, should anyone prefer to call it a very 

 remarkable variety of the preceding {S. fasciculata), we shall not 

 strenuously refuse. At first glance it looks like a tubulina. After 

 the fashion of its kind, the beginning is soft and milky. The diam- 

 eter generally an inch and a half to two inches, the height four to six 

 lines; the form perfectly round, or more rarely somewhat oblong. 

 The hypothallus, stout, pellucid silvery, betimes iridescent, when 

 turned to the light, easily separable from the substratum, bears the 

 columellae, dusky, thin, hair-like, aggregate and yet entirely free, and 

 everywhere circinately convergent, depressed by the super-imposed 

 burden, hence decumbent: .... the capillitium loosely inter- 

 woven, coalesces to a common mass whose smooth and shining sur- 

 face shows above, regularly disposed minute papillae, the apices of 

 individual sporangia. 



"Far from infrequent, on decorticate pine, of Lycogala atrum a 

 constant companion"! 



It goes of course without saying, that for the authors quoted, 

 Lycogala atrum is Amaurochaete atra Rost. A. fuliginosa (Sow.) of 

 more recent students, described and perfectly figured in the volume 

 cited. 



It is surprising that they did not enter the present species also as a 

 lycogala. But the stemonitis relationship this time impressed them 

 rather than the aethalial ; besides they were misled by the S. fascicu- 

 lata of Gmelin and Persoon, a composite which the genius of Fries 

 hardly availed to disentangle twenty-five years later. 



The last named author, as we see, wrote first Lachnobolus, then 

 Reticularia. He calls the interwoven capillitium — lachne, wool, a 



