ME. G. MASSEE ON GASTEROLICHENES. 
307 
little oblong or clavate masses, varying in colour from yellow to green or grey. A 
vertical section shows a little peridiom above, filled with threads and globose purplish 
spores, remarkable for a border of long spines, all situated in the same plane. The 
peridium is supported by a spongy central column, giving off threads which are 
terminated by large globose bodies resembling closely the gonidia of Lichens, but 
growing very much like the Palmella* figured at p. 118. Dr. Montagne has observed 
these bodies to become blue with iodine, but this is not confirmed by myself or Mr. 
Broome. I have, in fact, tried various preparations of iodine, and the addition of 
sulphuric acid has given no blue tinge. The general colour of the plant does not arise 
from these bodies so much as from the fine threads on which they grow. Increase in 
many cases certainly takes place exactly as in the Pcdmella, by the division of the 
central nucleus, and in one instance I have observed two of them to be confluent. 
This very curious fungus was gathered by my son, Lieutenant Em eric Sreatfield 
Berkeley, in his garden at Bowenpilly, near Secunderabad. I have named it 
Emericella variecolor, and it is certainly one of the most curious that has ever come 
under my notice.” 
The plant is gregarious inhabit and resembles in external appearance such Fungi as 
Diderma or Tubulina, and, although stated by Berkeley to be on the confines of 
Myxogastres, is arranged by that author under Trichogastres. The shape varies from 
cylindrical to turbinate, measuring from two to three lines high by two lines in 
diameter. In structure, the genus approaches Lycoperdon, with which it agrees in 
the single membranaceous peridium and well-developed sterile base. The hyphse of 
the sterile stem-like base are thick-walled, about 8/x in diameter, and form an interlaced 
central column surrounded by a loose peripheral plexus of branched hyphse, which 
pass uninterruptedly upwards and form the peridium. The dense capillitium is 
continuous with the sterile base, and consists of branched tapering hyphse of a pale 
yellow colour when viewed by transmitted light. The spores are purple-brown in the 
mass, globose, and furnished with a row of spines, all situated in one plane; diameter, 
including the spines, about 12/*. In Trichogastres the hyphse concerned with 
reproduction have usually very thin walls, and disappear soon after the formation of 
the spores ; consequently the mode of attachment of the spores could not be ascertained. 
Dehiscence takes place by the disintegration of the upper portion of the peridium, as 
in Lycoperdon ceelatum, the persistent capillitium remaining attached to the more or 
less marginate stem-like base. The alga is Pcdmella botryoides, Grey., which appears 
to differ in its larger size, and in being connected by green threads, from the plant 
described by PiABENHOrstI under the same name. The cells are sub-globose or broadly 
elliptical, varying from 20/x to 39/x in longest diameter, and furnished with a very thick, 
hyaline, lamellose cell-wall. From the chlorophyllose portion of the cell a green 
eseptate filament passes through the cell-wall, where it is joined at some distance to a 
* The Palmella alluded to is P. botryoides, Grev. 
f 1 Flor. Eur. Alg.,’ vol. 3, p. 33. 
O p o 
— 11 — 1 
