1296 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters. 
Lister states that the plasmodium is rose-colored or white, the 
sporangium wall membranous and of two layers. He finds the 
spores minutely warted or more or less distinctly reticulated on 
one side and 9-12/* in diameter. 
Massee finds some of the sporangia to be subsessile. He de¬ 
scribes the spores as covered with a very fine irregular network. 
The specimens which I have vary in color from a medium yel¬ 
low which closely resembles the color of some of the Hemitrichia 
clavata, to dark olive brown. The size also varies. These- vari¬ 
ations are quite marked sometimes in material gathered at the 
same date and place. Some of the elaters carry their spiral 
bands nearly or quite to the tip. The spores I find to be finely 
and equally reticulated, and 10-12/* in diameter. 
Several groups of sporangia on a piece of poplar bark found 
at Blue Mounds, April 29, 1904, are distinctly sessile, the spo¬ 
rangia being attached to the substratum by their attenuated 
bases. Prom their general appearance they might easily be mis¬ 
taken for T. varia or T. pcrsimilis, but under the microscope the 
elaters and spores show the characteristics of T. decipiens per¬ 
fectly. These specimens are evidently of the last year’s growth, 
and the variations may have come about by its fruiting very late 
in the fall under unfavorable conditions. 
Another set of dried specimens from East Madison, August 
5, 1903, vary from light red, semi-transparent, to dull black, 
opaque: from subsessile to stipitate. Many are wrinkled, rough¬ 
ened, very hard and brittle. A very few of the sporangia are 
soft and light colored at the top. In this softer portion I found 
the characteristic capillitium and spores of T. decipiecns. It was 
impossible to crush most of these sporangia in such a manner* 
as to learn the character of the contents. These are evidently 
immature fruiting bodies which have been arrested in their 
development. Occasionally similar brittle black sporangia are 
found mingled with ripe, perfect sporangia of T. decipiens. Such 
imperfect forms as these may have been sometimes named as 
new species. Lister mentions specimens of T. botrytis in the 
Strassburg herbarium which he says have 4 ‘sessile, black, and 
brittle sporangia associated with others of brown and bright 
nut color.” They may have been immature specimens arrested 
in development. 
We have specimens from Blue Mounds, October 4, 1902; many 
