SPORE FORMATION IN LYCOOALA EXIGUUM MORG. 
BY HENRY S. CONARD. 
On the 5tli of October, 1907, yonng aethalia of a Lycogala were col- 
lected in a grove four miles southwest of Grinnell, Iowa, killed in 
chromo-acetic acid and carried through into paraffin. Sections have 
shown some interesting stages in the development of spores. Since this 
process has hitherto been described in only two species of saprophytic 
myxomycetes, it seemed desirable to record the observation. Whether 
the organism in question is Lycogala exiguum or L. epidendrum cannot 
be certainly determined. Its small size and the fact that only four or 
five aethalia were found indicate the former species. 
The specimens have already formed a peridium, in which are embedded 
the familiar masses of protoplasm with nuclei. The protoplasm of the 
main body of the aethalium is already divided into typical uni-nucleate 
spores. Tubular capillitial threads are frequent throughout the spore 
mass, but only rarely have they shown any connection with the peridium. 
In the outer portions of the aethalia, that is, adjacent to the peridium 
and on the free side of the body, there are in two cases many spherical 
and irregular masses of protoplasm containing from two to several nuclei. 
In one case these are apparently ^‘pseudo-spores, ” or masses of sub- 
stance whose development into spores was cut short — probably by desicca- 
tion. In the other, the process of spore formation was evidently arrested 
by the killing fiuid. A third has an area of similar material through 
the middle of the fruit. 
It is clear that the protoplasm is divided by irregular cleavages first 
into large, multinucleate blocks, and then into smaller and smaller por- 
tions, until finally but one nucleus remains to each piece. These pieces 
then round up and form spores. Meanwhile, nuclear division goes on, 
quite regardless of the lines of cleavage, until the final separation into 
spores. 
The whole process, including the formation of pseudo-spores, is so 
precisely like that described by Harper in 1900 (Bot. Gazette) for Fuligo, 
