Rare. New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Iowa, Missouri, Oregon, Washington, California; Vancouver Island.
3. Oligonema nitens (Lib.) Rost.
[Plate II]., Figs. 8, 8 a, 8 b.
- 1834. Trichia nitens Lib. Pl. Cr. Ard., III., No. 227.
- 1875. Oligonema nitens (Lib.) Rost., Mon., p. 291.
- 1883. Trichia pusilla Schroet., Kr. Fl. Schl., III., p. 114.
Sporangia gathered in small, heaped clusters, irregularly spherical, bright straw-color, or yellow, sessile, superimposed, the peridium thin, smooth, shining; capillitium of short elaters, simple or branched, smooth, adorned with an occasional projecting ring, often with faint spiral sculpture spreading especially toward the apices, which are blunt or anon acute, the point sometimes flexed or bent to one side, never very long; spore-mass bright yellow, spores globose, beautifully reticulate, 12–14 µ.
Readily recognized at sight by its heaped, shining, or glistening sporangia. The capillitial threads are further definitive, and serve to distinguish it from everything else.
The range is wide, probably coextensive with the forests of the country. Specimens are before us from New England, Canada, Montana, and all intervening regions, and south to the Gulf of Mexico; California, Nevada,—Prof. Bethel. Yosemite, shores of Mirror Lake!
4. Oligonema fulvum Morgan.
- 1893. Oligonema fulvum Morgan, Jour. Cin. Soc., p. 42.
Sporangia large, sub-globose, sessile, or crowded, more or less regular; the peridium tawny yellow, or olivaceous, very thin and fragile, iridescent; mass of capillitium and spores tawny-yellow, elaters simple or sometimes branched, very short, sometimes with thicker swollen portions, the surface marked with low smooth spirals, in places faint and obsolete, the extremities rounded and obtuse, usually with a minute apiculus; spores globose, minutely warted, 10–13 µ.