286 Lister . — On Chondrioderma difforme 
Another sowing of spores from the cultivation B was 
made in two watch-glasses on tissue-paper with three and 
four cress-seeds. In ten days plasmodia were detected, 
almost hyaline in colour ; the thin tissue-paper allowed the 
streaming movement to be observed under the microscope 
very clearly. 
In a few days from this time, eight sporangia had formed 
in each watch-glass, and these varied like the last described 
in having the capillitium well developed or absent and either 
darker than that of the parent or colourless. The basal 
wall was in some cases almost free from colour, in others 
it had nearly as much orange tint as many that had formed 
from the yellow plasmodium 1 . 
Some sporangia formed under water at the bottom of the 
watch-glass, and here there was no development of the 
calcareous upper wall, or it was represented by a few scattered 
crystals ; in point of fact exactly resembling those described 
by Professor Marshall Ward as growing on the submerged 
roots of hyacinth 2 . 
A curious intermediate form was noticed in some sporangia 
which had developed when partly covered with water: in 
these the chalk was distributed in irregular patches over 
the inner membrane and was overspread by an outer mem- 
brane, giving a tough character to the sporangium ; thus a 
double membraneous wall was formed embracing the whole 
spore-cavity, the patches of chalk lying, as it were in pockets, 
between the two layers. From the base of one of these 
sporangia arose irregular columns, or lumps of aggregated 
chalk-granules enclosed in diverticula of the inner membrane, 
and taking the place of normal capillitium ; in another, one 
1 The varied colour of the plasmodium is interesting in relation to what we find 
in different gatherings of Trichia fallax. In the neighbourhood of Lyme Regis, 
where this species is very common, it rises out of decayed wood, either in rose- 
coloured or pure white plasmodium. As a rule, we do not find these colours 
mixed together ; on one stump all will be red, on another all white. The 
sporangia, capillitium, and spores appear to be perfectly identical, whether 
developed from the red or white plasmodium. 
2 Studies from the Biological Laboratories of Owens College, vol. i, PI. III. 
