1262 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 
large number of the white conical stipes without a single spor- 
ange to show what it had been. 
I have specimen gathered at Blue Mounds, August 18, 1903, 
of which none of the sporanges remain; the white stipes covering 
the setae of a green moss. Two specimens in which this species 
was growing on leaves, grass, moss and small twigs were found 
opposite Fond du Lac, July 28, 1897. Not many of the spor¬ 
anges remain on the stipes of these. I found some fine speci¬ 
mens in the cemetery woods, July 21, 1904, and two lots were 
found at Blue Mounds, July 23, 1904. Of these last some were 
growing on a piece of dead twig which was about three-fouirths 
of an inch in diameter, some on a living green fern frond, and 
a great quantity on dead leaves which had lodged beside a de¬ 
cayed log. Specimens found in Vilas woods, July 28, 1904, in¬ 
clude one group on a thick dead oak leaf, the hypothallus in this 
showing its venulose character very beautifully. Another group 
on many green leaves and stems was found at Blue Mounds, July 
13,1907. ” 
Lamproderma violaceum (Fries) Rost. 
1829. Stemonitis riolacea Fries, Syst. Myc., III., p. 162. 
1875. Lamproderma violaceum . (Fries) Rost., Mon., p. 204. 
Macbride: “Sporangia closely gregarious or scattered, de¬ 
pressed globose, more or less umbilicate below, metallic blue or 
purple, sessile or short stipitate; stipe stout, dark brown or 
black, even; hypothallus when the sporangia are crowded, a 
thin, continuous, purplish membrane; when the sporangia are 
scattered, the hypothallus discoidal; columella cylindric or tap¬ 
ering slightly upward, the apex obtuse, black, attaining the 
center of the sporangium; capillitium lax and flaccid, made up 
of flexuous threads branching and anastomosing to form a net¬ 
work, open in the interior, more dense without, the threads at 
first pale brown as they leave the columella, becoming paler out¬ 
ward to the colorless tips; spores minutely warted, violaceous 
gray, 9-ll^u. When the sporangia are empty the pallid extrem¬ 
ities give a whitish appearance to the little spheres. Only when 
the spores are ready for dispersal does the peridium assume its 
rich metallic purple tints. 5 ’ 
Saccardo’s description does not differ from the above. 
