Sowerby, in his comment on plate 257, Eng. Fungi, says: "It appears to consist of branching threads affixed to the deal and holding a dense mass of sooty powder. Over the whole is a thin, deciduous pellicle." This description seems to be applicable to nothing else. The figure amounts to little. Fries recognizes the English description, as does Rostafinski, but both authors adopt the later name given by Albertini and Schweinitz, simply because of the excellent detailed description found in the Conspectus.

2. Amaurochæte tubulina (Alb. & Schw.) Macbr.

[Plate XX.], 6 and 6 a.

Plasmodium at first transparent then white then rosy, ashen or grey finally deepening to jet-black; the æthalium even, thin, variable in extent from one to ten centimeters, covered by a distinct but thin transparent cortex, papillate, extended laterally but a short distance beyond the fructification, fragile, soon disappearing; hypothallus long-persistent, thin, silvery, supporting the capillitium as if by stipes, short slender columns, irregular plates, expansions, etc.; the capillitium an intricate network, very abundant, elastic, on fall of the peridium appearing like tiny tufts of wool, the meshes large, but formed as in Stemonitis, persistent, dull black; spores, under the lens, dull olivaceous black, minutely roughened, 12–14 µ.

This species differs from the preceding, already well known, especially in the capillitial characters. In the older species the capillitial branches fray out, and are only sparingly united into a net extremely lax. In the present form the net is the thing, common to all sporangia. The total effect is to lend to the blown-out æthalium a woolly appearance, entirely unlike that of its congener under the same conditions. But until fructification is quite mature, the presence of the collaborating sporangia below is indicated, suggested, by the papillose upper surface.

The amaurochetes are remarkable in that they appear upon coniferous wood, logs or lumber, to all appearance undecayed. The species just described developed abundantly in August on the recently decorticated logs of Pinus ponderosa, on the south-western slopes of Mt. Rainier, Washington. In logging operations in the locality referred to, the trees are felled often at considerable distance from the mill. They are not infrequently large, 75–120 cm. in diameter. The logs are dragged along the ground, the transportation facilitated by removal of the bark from the new fallen trunk. In a few weeks' time, affected by alternate rain and sun, the whole surface becomes marked with hundreds of minute, almost invisible cracks, and it is in the larger of these that the plasmodium of the present species has its habitat. Hardly any mycologic phenomenon is more surprising than to see plasmodia rising to fructification, scores at a time, upon a surface, new and white, showing otherwise no evidence of any decomposition. Doubtless the persisting cambium, the unused starches, sugars, the wood of the season yet unlignified, afford easily accessible nutrition.

When this form was first examined in the laboratory its distinctness was immediately seen. It was without doubt Fries' cribrose reticularia; nobody questions that. Under this name, citing Fries' description, specimens were sent out to herbaria as Harvard. Further study of the records, however, soon convinces one familiar with the ontogeny of the case that we are here face to face with the species, described by Alb. & Schw. in their fine Conspectus. Their account of the form, evidently often taken and now described with great care, is entirely clear when read in presence of the facts. It is here submitted, as less easy of access but essential, if the reader would appreciate the present disposal of the species.

"S. Tubulina NOBIS