CHONDRIODERMA.] 
PHYSARACEiE. 
75 
Genus 8.— LEOCARPUS Link, in Berl. Ges. Nat. Fr. Mag., 
iii., p. 25 (1809). Sporangium with two walls, the outer 
cartilaginous and calcareous, shining; the inner hyaline. 
Capillitium more or less arranged in two systems, one consisting 
of a netwoi'k of rigid hyaline threads, the other of coarse anasto- 
mosing branches charged with coloured granules of lime. 
1. L. vernicosus Link, I.e. (1809). Plasmodium orange-yellow, 
among dead leaves. Sporangia obovoid or globose, sessile or shortly 
stalked, crowded, 2 to 4 mm. long, chestnut or purple-brown, 
shining as if varnished, sometimes dehiscing in revolute floriform 
lobes ; sporangium-wall double : the outer wall consisting of two 
layers, the outer cartilaginoiTS, orange-brown, the inner densely 
calcareous, white ; the inner wall is hyaline, giving . attach- 
ment to the capillitium. Columella none. Stalk short, weak, 
yellowish, translucent, arising from a membranous hypothallus. 
Capillitium a network of rigid hyaline threads with flattened 
expansions at the axils and with few lime-knots, connected with 
a system of coarse branches often combined into a dense network 
and charged throughout with brownish lime-granules. Spores 
violet-brown, spinulose, 11 to 13 yu, diam., occasionally 15 to 
20 /A diam., rarely clustered as in Badhamia. — Grev., Scot. Crypt. 
Fl., ii. (1824), t. 111. Diclerma vernicosum Pers., in Usteri, Ann. 
Bot., XV., p. 34 (1795). Lycoperdon fragile Dicks., PI. Crypt. 
Brit., i., p. 25 (1785). Leocarfus Jragilis Best., Mon., p. 132, 
fig. 93 ; Cooke, Myx. Brit., p. 23 ; Mass., Mon., p. 338 ; Blytt, 
Bidr. Norg., Sop. iii., p. 5 ; Macbride, in Bull. Nat. Hist. Iowa, 
ii., p. 153. 
Plate XXIX., A.— a. sporangia, x 20 ; I. capillitium and spores with 
fragment of sporangium-wall showing the three layers, x 170 : c. spore, 
X 600 (England). 
Hah. On dead leaves, etc. — Hornsev, Middlesex (B. M. 22) ; Epping 
Forest, Essex (L:B.M.5l) ; Leighton Buzzard, Beds. (L:B.M.61) ; 
Lyme Regis, Dorset (L:B.M.51) ; Mortonhall, Edinburgh (B. M. 1061); 
Prance (Paris Herb.) ; Belgium (B. M. 482) ; Germany (B. M. 1059) ; 
Poland (Strassb. Herb.) ; Bohemia (B. M. 489) ; Finland (B. M. 492) • 
Tasmania (K. 1390) ; Mass., U.S.A. (B. M. 493) ; Iowa (B. M. 818) : 
S. Carolina (B. M. 495). 
Leocarpiis ramosus Fr. Summ. Veg. Scan., p. 450, is excluded by 
Rostafinski, on the ground of its being probably an immature specimen 
of L. vernicosus (Rost., Mon., p, 306). 
Genus 9.— CHONDRIODERMA Eostafinski, Versuch, p. 13 
(1873). Sporangia sessile or stipitate; sporangium-wall of two 
layers, the outer either a crust composed of globular lime-granules 
and usually separating fi-om an inner membranous layer, or 
cartilaginous, more or less charged with Hme, and not separating 
from the inner layer (except in C. Sauteri) ; capillitium without 
lime-knots. The genus Ghonclrioderma embraces two sub-genera, 
Euchondrioderma and Leanghcm, which are connected by inter- 
mediate forms. 
