Petch. — The Genus Endocalyx, Berkeley and Broome. 397 
way. The ‘ calyx ’ at the top of the stalk remains in fourteen cases ; 
in four of these it is composed of oblong lobes as in E. cinctus , and in the 
other ten it splits up into a brush of fascicles of hyphae. Berkeley and 
Broome’s two figures show both these forms, though the lobes are too 
pointed in the first. The specimens are only slightly rough, not scaly 
as in the figures. 
The conidia and conidiophores are the same as those of E. psilostomch 
and it is undoubtedly the same species. 
But the greatest difference between this species and E. cinctus and 
melanoxanthus lies in the structure of the lobes of the cup or funnel : in the 
latter they are brittle and rectangular, but in most of the specimens of 
E. Thwaitesii they divide into fine strands of hyphae and are flaccid. 
Such specimens, therefore, lack one of the chief characters of the genus, 
if it is to include the other species. The yellow substance which should 
cement the external hyphae into a continuous sheet is scattered in irregular 
granules (up to 4 /x diam.), so that the narrow strands appear beaded : and 
the conidiferous hyphae are roughened in the same way. The strands of 
hyphae are therefore flexible. The comparison with the other two species 
to which it is undoubtedly related suggests that this condition is abnormal, 
and this view is supported by the occurrence in the same gathering of 
specimens in which the hyphae are united into plates. It has been shown 
that when E. melanoxanthus is supplied with a large quantity of water, 
it produces first of all a white tuft of hyphae with irregular yellow granules 
scattered through it. This appears to afford a clue to the abnormalities of 
E. Thwaitesii. It seems probable that the specimens developed in very 
wet weather, and that the yellow binding material has therefore been 
excreted in irregular granules instead of in a continuous sheet. Similarly, 
the annulus at the base might be formed by a tuft of hyphae such as occurs 
under the same conditions in E. melanoxanthus. 
Berkeley and Broome’s type specimens are undoubtedly in a damaged 
condition, and the above seems the most probable explanation of their 
present state ; but, until fresh specimens have been collected, we can only be 
certain that it is a stalked form, and differs from the other two in its coarsely- 
warted or spinulose spores. When the specimens of E. cinctus were first 
gathered, it was thought that this might be identical with E. Thwaitesii , 
but as no trace of a black basal cylinder can be detected in the herbarium 
specimens of the latter, this view had to be abandoned. 
Classification. 
Berkeley and Broome placed the genus Endocalyx in the Myxomycetes, 
a position which its hyphal structure at once negatives. Penzig and 
Saccardo named the ‘ fair-weather ’ form of E. melanoxanthus, Phaeodiscula , 
which would include it in the Sphaeropsidales, but the absence of a distinct 
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