Sporangia gregarious, scattered, dull tawny brown, shading to dark brown below, about ½ mm. in diameter, globose, stipitate; stipe short, about equal to the sporangium, stout, brown or brownish black, rugulose, solid; capillitial mass bright straw color; the elaters long cylindrical, 3–4 µ wide, adorned with spirals four, which wind unevenly, are perfectly smooth, and terminate in abrupt tips about twice the diameter of the elater; spores yellow, under the lens yellow, minutely and closely warted, globose, 12 µ.
The spores of this species resemble closely those of the preceding, but the sporangium is at sight different in appearance and proportions and the capillitium not the same at all. The elaters are never fusiform, the apices always abrupt in their acumination, and the sculpture irregular and uneven. In form the elater resembles that of T. scabra. The description is drawn from specimens, N. A. F., 2495, with which, however, specimens received from Dr. Rex and later collected exactly correspond.
The elaters of uniform diameter, the apices abruptly narrowed to a blunt point, turned to one side, will serve to distinguish this species from the whole T. botrytis group, some forms of which it outwardly resembles.
We have beautiful specimens from the shores of Puget Sound.
New York.
12. Trichia erecta Rex.
- 1890. Trichia erecta Rex, Proc. Phil. Acad., p. 193.
Sporangia gregarious, often in clusters of two or three together, but generally single, nut-brown, checkered with broad, conspicuous yellow dehiscence bands, globose, ½ mm. wide, stipitate, stipe double the sporangium, dark brown, solid; capillitial mass bright yellow, the elaters cylindric, 3–4 µ wide, terminating in apices short and smooth, adorned with spirals, four, coarsely spinulose, winding unevenly or even branching and so united to one another! spore-mass yellow, spores by transmitted light pale, globose, minutely warted, 12 µ.
Distinguished at sight by the peculiarly mottled peridium. T. botrytis in its ochraceous forms sometimes shows tendency to the same thing, but the checkered surface is here conspicuous. The elaters resemble those of the preceding form, but are remarkably rough.
Rare. Adirondacks, New York.