128 
ENDOSPOREiE. 
[lamproderma. 
This species is not unfrequent in the United States, where it is 
described by Dr. Rex as sometimes occurring in vast abundance, " cover- 
ing one entire side of a fallen log about 3 feet in diameter for a 
length of about 10 feet with the steel-coloured sporangia." The 
specimens named by Berkeley Stemnnitis 'phymroides var. suhaemus, 
from Ohio (K. 1560, 1562), correspond in every respect, in size, capilli- 
tium, and in the spores, which measure 6 to 7 /x, with Rostafinski's type 
of Lamproderma arcyrionema in Strassb. Herb. Comatricha ShimeJciana 
Macbride, from Nicaragua (B. M. 1008), is a typical form of L. arcyrio- 
nema. 
Hal. On dead wood.— Epping Forest, Essex (L:B.M.97) ; France 
(Paris Herb.) ; Poland (L:B.M.97) ; Borneo (L:B.M.97) ; Philadelphia 
(L:B.M.97) ; Ohio (L:B.M.97) ; Nicaragua (B. M. 1008). 
4. L. irideum Mass., Men., p. 95 (1892). Plasmodium watery- 
white, among dead leaves. Total height 1 to 1-5 mm. Sporangia 
globose, stipitate, erect, scattered or gregarious, 0-3 to 0*5 mm. 
diam., steel-blue or bronze, brilliantly iridescent; sporangium- 
wall deKcately membranous, colourless, soon falling away in large 
fragments. Stalk setaceous, black, shining, rising from a purple- 
brown circular hypothallus. Columella cylindrical, truncate, 
scarcely reaching to half the height of the sporangium. Capillitium 
of rigid threads, radiating from the apex of the columella, 
dichotomously branching and anastomosing; black, purple-brown, 
rarely pale brown, pale at the base, rigid and coloured to the 
free extremities ; the threads connecting the apex of the columella 
with the somewhat persistent base of the sporangium-wall usually 
delicate and colourless. Spores violet-grey, minutely warted, 
6 "5 to 8 /A diam. — Stemonitis scintillansBerk. & Br., in Journ. Linn. 
See, XV., p. 2 (1877). Lamproderma arcyrioides vsLV. iridea Cooke, 
Myx. Brit., p. 50 (1877). £Ine7'thenema muscorum Lev., in Ann. 
Sc. Nat., Ser. iv., xx., p. 289. 
Plate L., A.— a. sporangia, x 3^ ; &. sporangia, x 20 ; c. columella and 
capillitium, x 80 ; i^. branching thread of capillitium, showing the colour- 
less base, x 180 ; e. spores, x 600 (England). 
This species resembles some forms of L. violaceum, but is marked by 
the colourless base of the capillitium threads where they spring from 
the truncate apex of the columella ; apart from the character of the 
capillitium, which is liable to some variation, it can always be distin- 
guished by the spores, which instead of being minutely and closely 
spinulose, as in the pale-spored form of L. violaceum, are beset with 
scattered warts, which can easily be counted when magnified 1,500 
diam., and number about thirty on the hemisphere. It is a most 
abundant species in England ; in heaps of dead leaves it appears in 
countless numbers, and in a dark fir plantation near Lyme Regis the 
stones and herbage by the side of a rivulet appeared hoary over an 
area of many square yards with the young rising sporangia, and a little 
search showed the mature forms in equal abundance. The specimen 
in the Kew Collection from Ceylon (K. 1 634) has the same character 
as the English gatherings, and is accurately described by Berkeley 
under the name of Stemonitis scintiUans (I.e.). There are several 
specimens of this species in the Kew Collection, named L. arcyrioides 
var. iridea Cke. (K. 615—019) ; these are referred to in Mr. Massee's 
