FAMILY POLYANGIACEAE 



1037 



The contents are first contracted within 

 the cyst walls, showing the individual 

 rods. The cyst wall is then absorbed or 

 disappears at the base, and the rods 

 escape in a regular stream until only the 

 empty cyst is left. 



Fruiting bodies: Cysts nearly conical, 

 rounded at tip, average 12 by 28 microns 

 (6 to 20 by 15 to 45 microns), straw 

 yellow, in spherical heads of variable 

 numbers (70 to 90 microns) at tips of 

 branches. Cystophore orange-colored, 

 slender, striated, often twisted or ir- 

 regularly bent, simple or branched as 

 many as 5 times. About 600 microns 

 high, rarely 1 mm. 



Source and habitat: Thaxter (1892, 

 loc. cit.), melon rind from South Carolina 

 and old straw from Ceylon and Cam- 

 bridge, Mass. Zukal (loc. cit.), Vienna. 

 Quehl, dung from Java and on deer 

 dung, near Berlin. Thaxter (1904, loc. 

 cit.), New Haven, Conn., Tabor, Iowa, 

 Florida, Laubach, Java. 



Illustrations : Berkeley, Introduction 

 to Cryptogamic Botany, London. 1857, 

 313. Thaxter, Bot. Gaz., 17, 1892, 389, 

 PI. 22 and 23, Figs. 1-11. Quehl, Cent, 

 f. Bakt., II Abt., 16, 1906, 9, PI. 1, Fig. 10. 

 Jahn, Kryptogamenfiora der Mark Bran- 

 denburg, V, Pilze I, Lief 2, 1911, 199, 

 Fig. 6. Jahn, Beitrage zur botanischen 

 Protistologie, I. Die Polyangiden, Geb. 

 Borntraeger, Leipzig, 1924, PI. 2, Figs. 

 14, 15, and 16. 



2. Chondromyces aurantiacus (Berke- 

 ley and Curtis i Thaxter. (Stigmaiella 

 aurantiaca Berkeley and Curtis (no 

 description). Introduction to Crypto- 

 gamic Botany, London, 1857, 313; Berke- 

 ley (description) , Notes on North Ameri- 

 can Fungi, Grevillea, 3, 1874, Q7;Stilbu))i 

 rhytidosporum Berkeley and Browne, 

 1873, 96, see Saccardo, Sylloge Fungo- 

 rum, 4- 1886, 571; Polycephalum auran- 

 tiacum Kalchbrenner and Cooke, 

 Australian Fungi, Grevillea, 9, 1880, 23; 

 Myxobotrjis variahilis Zukal, Ber. 

 deutsch. Bot. Ges., U, 1896, 340; Chon- 



dromyces aurantiacus Jahn, Kryptoga- 

 menfiora der Mark Brandenburg, V, 

 Pilze I, 1911, 206.) 



Etymologj' : Modern Latin aurantiacus, 

 orange-colored. 



Swarm stage (pseudo Plasmodium) : 

 Flesh-colored, distinctly reddish. Rods 

 large, tapering somewhat, normally 

 straight, rounded at either extremity, 

 0.6 to 1 by 7 to 15 microns, average 0.5 

 by 7 microns (?). Easily cultivated on 

 nutrient agar, but on this rarely produces 

 well formed cystophores, though culti- 

 vable on its ordinary substrate without 

 difficult}'. 



Fruiting bodies: Cysts oval, elliptical 

 or spherical, average 30 by 50 microns, 

 at first stalked then sessile, united in 

 small numbers at one end of cystophores, 

 bright orange-red, chestnut -brown when 

 kept moist for a considerable period or 

 flesh-colored. Cystophore colorless, of- 

 ten yellowish at the tip, usually simple, 

 rarely forked, 200 to 400 microns high. 



The Krzemieniewskis (Acta Soc. Bot. 

 Poloniae, 5, 1927, 96) have described a 

 Chondromyces aurantiacus var. frutescens 

 in which the fruiting body consists of a 

 greenish, later j-ellowish mass of rods 

 which develops into a thick cystophore 

 with numerous terminal cysts. The 

 cysts are oval or spherical, sometimes 

 with cross -striations, first orange-colored, 

 later brown, about 40 to 120 by 30 to 90 

 microns. The cyst rods are 0.9 to 1.0 

 by 2.3 to 3.4 microns. 



Source and habitat : Berkeley (1857, 

 loc. cit.), on lichen. Berkeley and 

 Brown (1873, loc. cit.), on rotten wood 

 from Ceylon. Thaxter (1892, loc. cit.) 

 in North America not uncommon on 

 old wood and fungi. Zukal (loc. cit.), 

 Vienna. Thaxter, Bot. Gaz., 23, 1897, 

 395, on antelope dung from Africa. 

 Thaxter, Bot. Gaz., 37, 1904,405, Florida, 

 Philippines. Quehl, Cent. f. Bakt., II 

 Abt., 16, 1906, 9, dung from Java. Krze- 

 mieniewski. Acta Soc. Bot. Poloniae, 4, 

 1926, 1, rare in Polish soils. 



Illustrations : Berkeley and Brown 



