Not common. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa.
3. Craterium leucocephalum (Pers.) Ditmar.
[Plate VIII]., Fig. 5.
- 1791. Stemonitis leucocephala Gmelin, Syst. Nat., II., p. 1467.
- 1801. Arcyria (?) leucocephala Persoon, Syn. Fung., p. 183.
- 1801. Craterium (?) leucocephalum, Persoon, Syn. Fung., p. 184.
- 1813. Craterium leucocephalum (Pers.) Ditmar, Sturm, Deutsch. Flora, Pilze, p. 21, Pl. 11.
- 1889. Physarum scyphoides Cke. & Balf., Jour. Myc., V., p. 186.
- 1896. Craterium convivale (Batsch) Morg., Jour. Cin. Soc., p. 86.
Sporangia gregarious, short-cylindric or ovate, pure white above, brown or reddish-brown below, stipitate, dehiscence irregularly circumscissile, the persistent portion of the peridium beaker-shaped; stipe short, stout, expanded above into the base of the peridium with which it is concolorous; hypothallus scant; capillitium white or sometimes, toward the centre, brownish, the calcareous nodules large, conspicuous, and persistent; spore-mass black, spores violaceous-brown, minutely spinulose, 8–9 µ.
Distinguished by its white cap from all except the next, from which the markedly different form serves as the diagnostic feature. In some gatherings, curious patches of yellow mark the otherwise snow white cap and sides; these are mere stains, or sometimes definite, crystalline, flake-like bodies, standing out in plain relief on the sporangial wall, or lurking in the larger nodules which are massed along the axis of the cup to form the pseudo-columella here strongly developed. Mr. Lister calls attention to these yellow flakes, and regards them as diagnostic. European specimens show the capillitium yellow, sometimes throughout!
The nomenclature question is here somewhat difficult. Fries heads his list of synonyms with Peziza convivalis Batsch. Batsch simply described Micheli's figure! Now there is nothing in Micheli's figure (Pl. 86, Fig. 14) to enable one to say with certainty which craterium Micheli had in mind, if craterium at all. Nor does Batsch help the matter when he offers the description following: "Stipitata; acute conica, patens; stipite subdistincto, lineari, brevi, valido. Albicans. In foliis hederae putridis." (Elenchus Fungorum, Batsch, 1783, p. 121.) There is nothing definitive here but the one word "albicans" quoted from Micheli. But this term is applicable the rather to C. minutum, the cups of which whiten with weathering. It may be, as insisted by Fries (Syst. Myc., III., p. 149), that Micheli drew crateriums; but if so, we cannot determine which species.
The specific name here adopted was applied by Persoon probably to this form; but Persoon likewise failed to distinguish the present species from C. minutum (see Syn. Fung., pp. 183, 184), and Fries, op. cit., p. 153. Ditmar, l. c., leaves no doubt as to what he figures and describes, and accordingly the name he first correctly uses is here adopted.
Not common. New England, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Colorado, Washington, California; reported from Europe.
4. Craterium cylindricum Massee.