Professor Morgan's herbarium material is at hand for study. It meets his description, needless to say, very generally. In what remains of the type the membranous connections are obscure; in fact the relation of such peridial (?) fragments to the capillitium in any way, is no longer evident. But in any event the colony does not impress one as something prematurely or improperly developed, a stemonitis gone begging;—nothing of that kind; it is clearly a comatricha, easily identifiable with no trace of a surface net but, with long free tips in plenty.
Misled no doubt, by the peridial fragments referred to, Mr. Lister in Mycetozoa, l. c., associated this with S. confluens Cke. & Ell., but entered it as a variety of S. splendens Rost., just the same. In the second edition of the Monograph, Ellis' species is set out, but Morgan's retains the old position.
In light of present knowledge, the relationship suggested would be difficult of proof. If C. flaccida Morgan be related to the splendens group at all, it must be with the form known as S. webberi Rex., but it differs from this in almost every particular. It has no net, with meshes uniform or diverse; it is clear brown in color, with a tinge of red, beneath the lens; the spores are smaller, distinctly warted and with the reddish tinge of the capillitium; and in short, it seems to be a comatricha and not a stemonitis.
Specimens from western Washington differ in some particulars but are apparently the same thing.
Ohio, Kentucky, Washington, California; not common.
4. Comatricha longa Peck.
[Plate VI.], Figs. 2, 2 a, 2 b.
- 1890. Comatricha longa Peck, Rep. N. Y. Mus., XLIII., p. 24.
Sporangia crowded in depressed masses or tufts, black, long, cylindric, even, stipitate; stipe black, shining, generally very short; hypothallus well developed, black; columella black, slender, weak, generally dissipated some distance below the apex; capillitium of slender brown or dusky threads anastomosing to form an open network next the columella, but extended outwardly in form of long free slender branchlets, now and then dichotomously forked; spore-mass blue-black, spores by transmitted light dark brown, globose, spinulose, some of them faintly reticulate, about 9 µ.
A very remarkable species. Rare in the west, more common, as it appears, in the eastern states. The sporangia occur in tufts about 1 or 2 cm. wide, springing generally from crevices in the bark of decaying logs, especially willow and elm, in swampy places. The sporangia are remarkable for their great length. Generally about 20–25 mm., specimens occasionally reach 50 mm.! The capillitial branches are so remote that the spores are scarcely retained by the capillitium at all. Well described and figured by the author of the species, Forty-third Rep. N. Y. State Museum, p. 24, Pl. 3.