h sporangium simulates one; capillitium
white, densely calcareous, with heavy angular nodules connected with
comparatively short threads; spores violet, globose, spinulose, about 12
mu in diameter.

Ometepe, Nicaragua. _Professor B. Shimek_.

This species resembles in some particulars No. 39, especially in the
amount of lime present in both capillitium and peridium, in the fluted,
sooty stipe, and the rough spores. Mr. Lister once regarded it as the
same. Nevertheless, it differs from _P. notabile_ in many definite
particulars. In the first place, the sporangia are different in form and
habit. They are obconic, nearly always compound, convolute, or botryoid,
in this respect somewhat resembling _P. polycephalum_. Besides, the
sporangia are uniformly much smaller, and show constantly the strongly
calcified centre, much transcending anything seen in _P. notabile_. The
stipe also is peculiar, quite short, an upward extension or sweep of the
common hypothallus which is usually very distinct or prominent; and,
while the stipe is longitudinally wrinkled, it is much less so than in
the related species, and in a different way. The spores are about the
same in size, but differ in color, in this respect agreeing rather with
_P. leucophaeum_.

In the _Mycetozoa, 2nd ed., l. c._, the present species is entered as a
synonym of two described by Massee: _Tilmadoche reniformis_ Mass., Mon.,
p. 336, and _Didymium echinosporum_ Mass., _Mon._ 239. But Massee's
description of his tilmadoche is, naturally enough, at variance in every
important point with the facts in the species before us. Massee says:
"... sporangia deeply umbilicate _below_, sausage-shaped and curved; the
stem elongated slender erect, pale brown; capillitial nodes scattered,
fusiform, colorless or yellow; spores 16-17 mu." It is evident that
whatever Massee may have had in hand as he wrote it was _not P.
nicaraguense_, which has spores 10-12 mu and reverses the remaining
description.

But _Didymium echinosporum_ also defines _T. reniformis_ since Lister,
_Mon._, p. 54, says they are based on two gatherings of one species. Of
this second species Massee says: "A superficial resemblance to _T.
nutans_, but distinct in the capillitium which contains _no trace of
lime_; spores 12-14 mu!" Again it is evident that whatever Massee had in
hand when he wrote, it was not _P. nicaraguense_ which "has capillitium
almost Badhamia-like," i. e., burdened with lime!

Worse than a