Bean—The Myxomycetes of Wisconsin. 1289 
the top at once becoming larger than the bottom. Its typical 
form is shown early. The sporange does not reach its normal 
size until some time ofter the stipe has grown to its full length. 
It is still milky-white. In about thirty-six hours after its first 
appearance, the stipe begins to turn reddish inside, the outside 
being translucent. In about forty-eight hours the whole body 
is dark red-brown; then it turns light yellow, the top turning 
first; the top then breaks away in fragments. The process is 
hastened by an inorease of temperature. 
These specimens in the greenhouse show the re flexed peridium 
and globose sporangium such as I have described above. Lister 
pictures such a fruit in Plate LXXIY of his Mycetozoa, and says 
it is a United States specimen. 
Our specimens are from Dead lake, cemetery woods, Yilas 
woods, and university woods, Madison; from opposite Fond du 
Lac gathered July 1897, and from. Blue Mounds. The most 
were gathered late in the fall, one lot in May. A few are on 
bark, but the most are on decayed poplar wood. 
Trichia varia (Pers.) Rost. 
1791. Stemonifis varia (Pers.) Gmel., Syst. Nat., II., p. 1470. 
1875. Trichia varia (Pers.) Rost., Mon., p. 251. 
Saccardo: ‘ ‘ Peridia sessile, globose, but the mass having an 
irregular surface, there often being some reniform sporanges in¬ 
termixed ; yellow, approaching brownish- or reddish-yellow, scat¬ 
tered or crowded; elaters cylindric, with a thin membrane, to¬ 
ward the ends regular or slightly enlarged, slightly curved, the 
ends 2-3 times as long as the diameter of the elater; spiral bands 
2, spaces between, 3 or 4 times as wide as the band; spores 
warted, dull yellow, 10-14/*. ’ ’ 
Macbride says of the sporangia that they are shining, sessile, or 
with short black stipe; hypothallus none. He says that the capil- 
litium is of rather long, simple, or more rarely branched elaters, 
4—5//. wide. He finds two spiral bands, prominent and narrow 
and in places remote, the apices acute. The spore-mass he calls 
yellow, the spores. 12-14//, in diameter, delicately verruculose, 
guttulate. He calls this a common species, variable in form. 
“The two spiral bands are loose and irregular, unlike anything 
