Sporangium globose, distinct, stipitate; the columella short or obsolete; the capillitium of few sparsely branched threads, which bear at their tops the persistent fragments of the peridium, but are not otherwise united.

Distinguished from Lamproderma by the peculiar manner in which the peridium is ruptured, and by the simplicity of the scanty capillitium. So far there appears to be but a single species.

1. Clastoderma debaryanum Blytt.

[Plate XIII]., Fig. 6, and [Plate XVI]., Fig. 13.

Sporangia scattered or gregarious, very minute, 1-12 to ¼ mm. in diameter, the peridium fugacious, except the minute patches that adhere to the capillitial branchlets, and the slight annulus at the base of the columella; stipe long, unequal, dark below, above paler; columella almost none, giving early rise to the comparatively few slender threads which by their repeated forking make up the capillitium; spores globose, even, violaceous, 8–9 µ.

Reported in the United States so far from Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois.

The sporangia are very small, but beautiful, delicate little structures, found on the bark of living red oak in this country; in Norway it seems to have been seen first on a dead polyporus. Its minuteness doubtless causes it to be generally overlooked, N. A. F., 2498.

3. Lamproderma Rostafinski