For our specimens we are indebted to the kindness of Dr. Roland Thaxter. The specimens were taken in a half-dry marsh, near Cambridge.
Material from Toronto sent by Professor Faull is also provisionally here referred. The form has netted spores, but they are not quite the same. The structure besides is more that of an amaurochaete; it has the peculiar basal webs and band-like stipes at base, stipes that never rise from horizontal to perpendicular and characterize Reticularia and especially Brefeldia as well as the usual amaurochaete. See [Plate XX]., Figs. 9, 9a, 9b.
3. Stemonitis fusca (Roth) Rost.
[Plate VI.], Figs. 4, 4 a, 4 b
- 1787. Stemonitis fusca Roth, Röm. Mag. Bot., I., p. 26.
- 1875. Stemonitis fusca (Roth) Rost., Mon., p. 193.
- 1892. Stemonitis fusca Rost., Massee, Mon., p. 72.
- 1895. Stemonitis fusca Roth, List., Mycetozoa, p. 110.
- 1899. Stemonitis fusca (Roth) Rost., Macbr., N. A. S., p. 115.
- 1899. Stemonitis maxima Schw., Macbr., N. A. S., p. 116.
Sporangia tufted, generally in small clusters 6–8 mm., the individual sporangia slender, cylindric, blue-black or fuscous, becoming pallid as the spores are lost, stipitate; stipe short, about one-fourth the total height, black, shining; hypothallus scanty, but common to all the sporangia; columella prominent, attaining almost the apex of the sporangium, freely branching to support the capillitial net; capillitium of slender dusky threads, which freely anastomose to form a dense interior network, and outwardly at length combine to form a close-meshed net; spores pale, dusky violet, usually beautifully spinulose-reticulate, but sometimes warted or spinulose only, or nearly smooth, 7–7.5 µ.
As here set out the description is intended to include S. maxima Schw. of the former edition. Rostafinski, Mon. l. c., describes S. fusca Roth. as having "spores smooth." Since most American gatherings have reticulated spores, and since Schweinitz described a black American species, his specific name seemed appropriate for all except smooth-spored forms.
In the meantime two things have happened; Mr. Lister has examined the specimens remaining in the Strasburg herbarium and finds them with reticulate spores. The statement quoted from the Monograph evidently does not apply to all of Rostafinski's material; but under the circumstances the name fusca may easily take the field, especially since another discovery makes for the same conclusion. The evidence is good that S. maxima Schw. was indeed the largest, i. e. perhaps, the tallest stemonitis he ever saw! probably, as his scanty herbarium-remnant shows, S. fenestrata Rex!
4. Stemonitis uvifera n. s.
[Plate XX.], Figs. 8, 8 a, 8 b, 8 c.