6. Cienkowskia Rost.

Fructification plasmodiocarpous, irregularly dehiscent, the wall a thin cartilaginous membrane destitute of lime, except the capillitial attachments within; capillitium scanty but rigid, and characterized everywhere by peculiar hook-like branchlets, free and sharp-pointed, the spores as in Physarum, etc.

The genus contains, so far, but a single species:—

Cienkowskia reticulata (Alb. & Schw.) Rost.

[Plate XIV]., Figs. 2, 2 a, 2 b.

Plasmodiocarp an elongated, irregularly limited, close-meshed net, closely applied to the substratum, the wall thin, transversely rugulose, and roughened, dull orange-yellow, splashed here and there with scarlet, anon entirely red, within marked by transverse calcareous ridges, supporting in part the calcareous system of the capillitium; capillitium of delicate, rigid, reticulating yellow tubules or threads with numerous free, uncinate or sickle-shaped branchlets, and large, irregular, calcareous plates, more or less transverse to the axis of the sporangium, attached to the peridial walls, as if to form septa, ordinary calcareous nodules few; spore-mass jet-black, spores, by transmitted light, violaceous, minutely roughened, 9–10 µ.

A very rare species, as it appears, easily recognized by the Coddington even, much more by the microscopic characters quoted; probably often overlooked by the collector, as to the naked eye it presents the appearance of some imperfectly developed, dried-up plasmodium. Very unlike Physarum serpula Morgan, not infrequently offered by collectors as Cienkowskia. It is Diderma reticulatum of Fries, who, strangely enough, thought it might be a plasmodial phase of Diderma (i. e. Leocarpus) fragile (Syst. Myc., III., p. 102).

Eastern United States, Europe, Java, Ceylon, California. See under L. fragilis, next following.