Sporangia cylindric, obtuse, closely fasciculate, "cinnamon brown," stipitate, 5–7 µ; stipe short, black, columella ceasing abruptly below the apex; capillitium a loose net-work with many broad expansions; the peridial net very delicate, the meshes small but uneven, 6–15 µ, with many projecting points; spores pale ferruginous, verruculose, 7–9 µ.
This is S. ferruginea Ehr. of Fries with its plasmodium yellow. Fries says "flavicat," becomes yellow, if one may follow the analogy of corresponding Latin verbs of color, so that the record of color-changes in the present species is yet to be recorded.
Until further experience may advise to the contrary, we may assume that all stemonites cinnamon-brown in color, with widened columella-tip, and pale yellowish spores 7–9 µ in diameter, have at some time in their history a yellow plasmodium, and accordingly represent in America the new-found species.
The larger spores, and, the strange proliferate development of the columella-tip, to which Miss Lister has happily called attention, constitute the essential diagnostic features here.
Our only specimens so far are from Oregon.
14. Stemonitis pallida Wingate.
[Plate XIII.], Fig. 3
- 1897. Stemonitis pallida Wing., N. A. F., Ell. and Ev., No. 3498.
- 1899. Stemonitis pallida Wing., Macbr., N. A. S., p. 123.
- 1911. Stemonitis pallida Wing., List., Mycetozoa, 2nd ed., p. 149.
Sporangia gregarious, or somewhat clustered, erect, cylindric obtuse, short, blackish brown, rubescent, becoming pallid, stipitate; stipe short, black, polished, rising from a thin, brown, or iridescent hypothallus; columella percurrent, ceasing abruptly at the apex; capillitium filling the interior with abundant branches which form at the surface a close-meshed net, little developed above, making the apex very blunt; spores in mass, dark brown, by transmitted light dusky, nearly smooth, 7.5 µ.