47. Physarum auriscalpium Cooke.

Sporangia scattered, stipitate or occasionally sub-sessile spherical, .8–1 mm. high; peridium granulated, bright golden yellow; stipe, when present, one-half to two-thirds the height of the sporangium, blackish-brown; hypothallus, minute, thin, brown; columella absent; capillitium rather dense, composed of large angular nodes, completely filled with bright yellow granules of lime, and connected by very short, delicate, colorless internodes destitute of lime; spores globose minutely verruculose, or asperate, 10.7–11.8 µ in diameter, brownish-violet by transmitted light, black in the mass.

This is the original description, 1893, of P. sulphureum (Alb. & Schw.) Sturgis; the author last named having compared certain stalked New England forms with what he could find of P. sulphureum in the herbarium of Schweinitz at Philadelphia, and having, as he thought, established identity.

Meantime Mr. Lister had been inclined to refer P. auriscalpium Cke. to P. rubiginosum Fr., Mycetozoa, p. 61.

In 1898 Professor Sturgis and Mr. Lister agreed that the New England specimens, owing to color and character of stipe and some other differences could not be the Schweinitzian species, but did indeed conform much better with those in London labelled P. auriscalpium Cke.

Accordingly P. sulphureum is something else, very different, (v. A. & S., Cons. Fung. Tab., VI., f. 1), and by aid of recent[28] discoveries in Sweden goes its own way again. Meanwhile P. sulphureum Sturgis stands, a new type for P. auriscalpium Cke., the description modified to suit; the lamented pioneer-author receives honor due, and his handsome species, with its "golden graving," may now march, let us hope, under appropriate banner far down the fair highway to future fame!

48. Physarum oblatum Macbr.

[Plate III.], Fig. 6; [Plate XIV.], Figs. 3, 3 a, 3 b.