4 Journal of Mycology [Vol. 9 
there are at least two species making the trouble with the speci¬ 
mens and possibly more than two. 
The synonyms under Chondrioderma trevelyani given in Lis¬ 
ter's Mycetozoa are: 
1. Leangium trevelyani Greville, Crypt. FI. 1825. 
2. Diderma trevelyani Fries, Syst. Myc. 1829. 
3. Chondrioderma cerstedtii Rostafinski, Mon. 1875. 
4. Diderma geasteroides and D. laciniatum, Phillips, Gre- 
villea, 1877. 
5 Chondrioderma geasteroides Massee, Mon. Myx. 1892. 
Rostafinski makes two species of 1, 2 and 3, Ch. trevelyani 
with a columella and Ch. oerstedtii without a columella. Massee 
confirms the species of Rostafinski and adds a third, Ch. geas¬ 
teroides, to include Phillips’s two Californian species; this has a 
columella. 
I may here remark that the British Jedburgh specimen is 
not the type of Ch. oerstedtii as stated by Lister; this author’s 
use of type is very loose. Lister combines all these 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 
into a single species; he says the sporangium wall is composed 
of “three inseparable layers," which is an absurdity upon the 
face of it; and he finds no columella in any of the specimens. 
Now as to my specimen: It consists of more than one hun¬ 
dred sporangia, of which about half are split open, growing on 
a piece of wood. The dry mature sporangium is polyhedral in 
shape, the lines of dehiscence along the edges being paler in 
color; it splits from the apex downward into several open or 
spreading segments, sometimes the polygonal apex is torn off 
and adheres to one of the segments. 
The wall is thick composed of a dense layer of glossy scales 
connate with the membrane, the surface of which is verrucose 
within and without, the outer surface pale umber, the inner 
glossy-white. The stipe is very short, slender, concolorous or 
nearly obsolete; the columella elliptic-oblong, verrucose, usually 
ejected along with the spore-mass at the time of dehiscence of 
the sporangium. I can, however, count many columellas remain¬ 
ing at the bottom of the open sporangia, though they are all 
clean of spores. The capillitium consists of slender, branched, 
dark-colored threads, forming a scanty network. The spores are 
globose, smooth (x 500), purplish-brown, 13-16 mic. in diameter. 
The line in the wall of the sporangium seems to me of the 
same nature as in the genus Lepidoderma. 
