AUSTRALIAN FUNGI. 
397 
colour with metallic tints ; stem very short, rather thick, darker in 
colour than the sporangium ; mass of capillitinm and spores pale 
flesh-colour, or yellowish; elaters elongated-fusiform, 6-7 nx at 
thickest part, 300-400 /x long, terminating at the apex in a pencil 
of simple or branched, cylindrical, smooth, sometimes nodulose 
filaments, 2 /x thick and 40-60 /< long ; spirals broad, flat, close ; 
spores globose, smooth, 9-11 fi diam. 
On wood. Tasmania. (Fig. 351.) 
Genus 9. ARCYRIA. Hill. 
Sporangia regular, plasmodiocarp, or asthalioid ; wall single, 
dehiscing irregularly, or in a circumscissile manner, basal portion 
persistent, columella absent ; stem usually filled with large cells, 
which become smaller upwards, and gradually pass into normal 
spores ; capillitinm dense, usually becoming elastically elongated, 
and protruding during dehiscence, free, or the basal threads at- 
tached to the inside of the stem, or attached at several points to the 
lower persistent portion of the sporangial wall; threads combined 
to form a dense network with or without free ends, ornamentation 
in the form of continuous ridges arranged in a spiral, or prominent, 
plate-like half-rings, or spines arranged in a very open spiral, or 
wart-like spines scattered equally over the entire surface of the 
threads. — Arcyria and Hemiarcyria. Rost. 
* Eu-aroykia. 'Threads without continuous spirals. 
2045 . Arcyria punicea. Pers. Rtjki. Mon. 268, fig. 190, 
192, 197. Sacc. Syll. 1457. Mass. Mon. 142. 
Sporangia more or less ovate, of a beautiful lustre, usually with 
an elongated erect stem ; colour of the walls of the sporangia, 
tubes, stem, mass of capillitinm and spores when mature, variable, 
mostly of a clear red or carmine-brown, more rarely nut-brown, 
now and then dirty-oehre, bright pale flesh-colour or rusty-brown ; 
tubes of the net of the capillitium very much flattened, 3^ p. 
diam. ; thickenings in the form of half rings or rings, or spines 
with half rings standing in rank, f /x high, encircling the 
thread in a spiral with a very diffuse twist ; spores smooth, 6f-7f 
M diam. 
On rotten stumps. Queensland. 
2046 . Arcyria ferruginea. Sauter. lltjhi. Mon. 280., fig. 
194. Mass. Mon. 144. Sacc. Syll. 1470. 
Sporangia ovate, stem usually short, standing on a narrow sub- 
stratum ; mass of spores and capillitium usually brick-red, now 
a nd then ferruginous, reddish-ochre or ochre ; capillitium not very 
much entangled, tubes three-sided, with rounded angles, one side 
wall very thick, border-like, parallel to itself, provided with erect 
thickenings, the two others furnished with irregular net-like delicate 
reticulations ; its width exhibits very variable increase, oscillating 
even in the net of one sporangium, and mixed without considera- 
tion ; spores coloured whilst living, 8-11 /x diam. 
On rotten wood, etc. Queensland, (big- 352.) 
