"S. magna pulvinata subhemisphaerica, stylidiis gregariis circinantibus, capillitiis elongatis cylindraceis in massam pulveraceam fuscam connatis, apicibus obtusis, prominulis, lucidis nigris.
"The size indeed, the circumscribed form, the capillitiums conjoined into a single body—indue this (form) with an appearance peculiar to a degree; however, should anyone prefer to call it a very remarkable variety of the preceding (S. fasciculata), we shall not strenuously refuse. At first glance it looks like a tubulina. After the fashion of its kind, the beginning is soft and milky. The diameter generally an inch and a half to two inches, the height four to six lines; the form perfectly round, or more rarely somewhat oblong. The hypothallus, stout, pellucid silvery, betimes iridescent, when turned to the light, easily separable from the substratum, bears the columellae, dusky, thin, hair-like, aggregate and yet entirely free, and everywhere circinately convergent, depressed by the superimposed burden, hence decumbent: ... the capillitium loosely interwoven, coalesces to a common mass whose smooth and shining surface shows above, regularly disposed minute papillae, the apices of individual sporangia.
"Far from infrequent, on decorticate pine, of Lycogala atrum a constant companion"!
It goes of course without saying, that for the authors quoted, Lycogala atrum is Amaurochaete atra Rost. A. fuliginosa (Sow.) of more recent students, described and perfectly figured in the volume cited.
It is surprising that they did not enter the present species also as a lycogala. But the stemonitis relationship this time impressed them rather than the æthalial; besides they were misled by the S. fasciculata of Gmelin and Persoon, a composite which the genius of Fries hardly availed to disentangle twenty-five years later.
The last named author, as we see, wrote first Lachnobolus, then Reticularia. He calls the interwoven capillitium—lachne, wool, a "pilam tactu eximie elasticam," etc. He read the description in the Conspectus, but carried away the stemonitis suggestion dominant there, as we have seen, put S. tubulina A. & S. as an undeveloped phase of S. fusca, which, of course, it is not. It needed not the authority of Rostafinski, Mon., p. 197, to assure us this. The earlier authors describe the species in course of development to complete maturity, and clinch the story by declaring the form a constant companion of the commonly recognized amaurochete, so fixing the relationship for us by habitat also.
These men made a mistake, of course, in placing their species among the stemonites at all. They did much better however than Fries who called it a reticularia. It was also a mistake to cite S. fasciculata,—the small fasciculate tufts of S. fusca and S. axifera offering by the aggregate habit only faint resemblance,—a possible refuge for those who would prefer another disposition of their species distinct (aliena) though it is.
Since Fries' day the species has been overlooked although the genus has received more than once attention. Zukal Hedwigia, XXXV., p. 335, describes A. speciosa as a new species. This Saccardo writes down, Syll. Fung., VII., p. 399, S. tubulina A. & S., admitting, however, at the same time, that as fine an authority as Raciborsky refuses to call Zukal's species either a stemonite or an amaurochete, thinks it deserving generic appellation of its own.
However, A. speciosa Zuk. need not here concern us. Neither in his description nor figures does Zukal at all approach the form we study. His species is not an amaurochete; the size of the spores suggest that, to say nothing of the capillitial structure.
In the same volume VII., the distinguished author introduces another amaurochete, A. minor Sacc. & Ellis, Mich. II., p. 566. This is American; sent from Utah by our famous pioneer collector Harkness. A specimen is before us: it is a lepidoderma! in shining, scaly armor dressed; vid. under L. carestianum.