35 6 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



are the spores, and twisted are the filaments with many a delicate 

 spiral wound, the coils running transverse to certain finer striae, 

 as if the whole structure did but make appeal to some aesthetic 

 eye. Slime-mold it was before, Trichia chrysosperma now, and, 

 so far as may be seen, simple evaporation has wrought the 

 change. 



Fig. 6 illustrates the fruit of another slime-mold which, dur- 

 ing the present year, has been extremely common in this vicinity. 

 Abundant rains during the summer were, perchance, the stimulat- 

 ing cause. On oak- 

 stumps of four or 

 five years' standing 

 there appeared glis- 

 tening patches of 

 the size of one's 

 hand, by no means 

 attractive to the cas- 

 ual observer ; rather 

 the reverse. Pres- 

 ently the entire mass 

 heaped itself up, be- 



coming, say, 



four 



tenths of an inch 

 in depth ; a thin 

 film covered all, and 

 desiccation began. 

 Shortly the entire 

 mass had been trans- 

 formed. Hundreds 

 of slender columnar 

 receptacles, each 

 mounted upon the 

 most delicate little, 

 black, shining pedi- 

 cle or stalk, and 

 crowded with 

 spores, completely 

 replaced that mass 

 of slime, leaving 

 scarcely a trace. 

 The upper film breaks away, and a thousand delicate, plume-like 

 structures wave a diminutive forest (Fig. 6). Each tiny stalked 

 receptacle is a spore-case with lace-like walls of richest color, and 

 is at first packed with unicellular sporules of the same deep tint. 

 The entire fruit resembles somewhat a stamen, hence the name, 

 Stemonitis •■■(like a stamen). Other fungi, of the same type as 



Fig. 4.—" Cedar-Apple " and Spores— the latter highly mag- 

 nified. 



