PHYSARUM.] 
PHYSARACE/E, 
37 
thallus ; sporangium- wall thin, bright grey. Oapillitium delicate, 
white, reticulate, with threads of unequal breadth, generally 3 to 4, 
sometimes as much as 12 broad, and thicker at the nodes. 
Spores single, 7-5 to 9 /x in diameter, violet, smooth. 
Hah. On grass and living herbs. — Silesia. 
15. B. irregularis Cooke & Ellis, in Grev. 1877, p. 89. Spor- 
angia subglobose or confluent, finally blackish-brown, scattered, 
sessile. Spores rough, globose, blackish, 10 /a in diameter. 
Hah. On Jersey pine in a fence.— N. Jersey. 
SPECIES EXCLUDED FROM THE GENUS. 
B. coadnata Kost. = Fuligo eUi2)sospora Lister. 
B. Fuckeliana Rost. = Trichamphora pezizoidea J ungh. 
B. noclidosa Mass. = Physarum calidris Lister. 
B. granulifera Mass. See note under Lepidoderma Carestianum 
Eost., p. 106. 
Genus 3.— PHYSARUM Persoon, inUsteri, Ann. Bot., xv., p. 5 
(1795). Sporangia stalked, sessile or plasmodiocarps ; sporangium- 
wall either single or consisting of two more or less separable 
layers, and containing lime granules distributed in loose or dense 
clusters or compacted into a crust ; the granules always innate 
and not in superficial crystals. Stalk consisting of a tube with 
a membranous wall : it may be empty and the wall contracted 
and wrinkled with longitudinal folds, either translucent or 
opaque with deposits of lime in the wall substance ; or the tube 
may be filled at the base or throughout with refuse matter 
discharged from the plasmodium ; or the tube may be filled with 
deposits of Kme, giving the stalk a brittle structure with a chalk- 
like section. Oapillitium forming a network of hyaline threads 
with vesicular expansions containing deposits of lime (= lime- 
knots). 
The genus Tilmadoche is described by Rostafinski (Mon., p. 12G) as 
difiPering from Phymrum in the oapillitium forking repeatedly at a 
narrow angle, and being provided with few and small lime-knots. 
These characters are too inconstant to be of value in classification. 
In P. leucophoium Fr., which from its abundance affords ample faciUty 
for study, we not unfrequently observe, in a growth sprung from one 
Plasmodium, some sporangia with capillitium characteristic of Phy- 
sarum and others of Tilmadoche, completely uniting P. leucophceum Fi\ 
with T. nutam Rost. T. gyrocephala Rost. (syn. P. polymorphum Rost.) 
frequently has capillitium with large lime-knots and broad membranous 
expansions, and the same may be seen in some gatherings of P. rirkle 
Pers. (syn. T. mutahilis Rost.). The type specimens of T. ohlonga 
Rost. and T. Mans Rost. are the same as Physarella mirahiUs Peck, 
which is di.stinguished from its alHes by well-marked characters of 
shape and capillitium that fully entitle it to the position of a separate 
genus. For these rca.sous the genus Tilmadoche is not retained. 
