1. Erionema aureum Penzig
- 1898. Erionema aureum Penz. l. c.
Sporangia elongate, clustered, pendulous, yellow or grayish yellow, generally stipitate on long flaccid stalks, or sessile and interlacing: stipes yellow, blending with the hypothallus; capillitium intricate, expanding at maturity after the manner of Arcyria to several times the sporangial length, the nodules small, yellow; spores nearly smooth, violaceous-brown, 5–6 µ.
This unique form is near the fuligos which it resembles, especially when sessile, in its intricate sporangia. The spores also are those of the common Fuligo septica. The habit is however entirely different. Mr. Fetch describes clusters in Ceylon, hanging free, four to six cm. in length!
2. Badhamia (Berkeley) Rost.
- 1852. Badhamia Berkeley, Trans. Linn. Soc., XXI., p. 153.
- 1875. Badhamia Rostafinski, Monograph, p. 139.
Sporangia simple; peridial wall simple, thin, breaking irregularly; capillitium formed of abundant, richly anastomosing tubules, filled throughout their entire length with calcareous granules; the nodes often feebly represented; stipe poorly developed or wanting entirely; columella, except in forms sometimes assigned to the sub-genus Scyphium, poorly developed or none; spores frequently adherent in clusters.
The whole genus calls for careful and protracted study; and the present so-called species are like something new on the world; as full of vagaries as though but just entered upon their phylogenetic race.
This genus is closely related to Physarum, but differs in having the capillitium calcareous throughout. Forms occur and are included here, in which the capillitium, especially in some parts, is physarum-like, physaroid. Nevertheless, the distinctions hold good as a rule, and are at once diagnostic.
In capillitial differentiation the badhamias are definite and beautiful. The net in a typical species, as B. papaveracea, is throughout uniformly evenly tubular, the calcareous deposits delicate in the extreme, presenting, as the spores disappear, an elegant trabecular structure as if to support the persisting peridium if not the original content. In other forms the capillitium is physaroid, with swollen nodes, but heavily calcareous but not quite throughout. Badhamia, Physarum, Tilmadoche, Craterium present a consistent group, of which Physarum is the generalized expression.