of that kind; it is clearly a comatricha, easily identifiable with no
trace of a surface net but, with long free tips in plenty.

Misled no doubt, by the peridial fragments referred to, Mr. Lister in
_Mycetozoa, l. c._, associated this with _S. confluens_ Cke. & Ell., but
entered it as a variety of _S. splendens_ Rost., just the same. In the
second edition of the _Monograph_, Ellis' species is set out, but
Morgan's retains the old position.

In light of present knowledge, the relationship suggested would be
difficult of proof. If _C. flaccida_ Morgan be related to the
_splendens_ group at all, it must be with the form known as _S. webberi_
Rex., but it differs from this in almost every particular. It has no
net, with meshes uniform or diverse; it is clear brown in color, with a
tinge of red, beneath the lens; the spores are smaller, distinctly
warted and with the reddish tinge of the capillitium; and in short, it
seems to be a comatricha and not a stemonitis.

Specimens from western Washington differ in some particulars but are
apparently the same thing.

Ohio, Kentucky, Washington, California; not common.

4. COMATRICHA LONGA _Peck._

PLATE VI., Figs. 2, 2 _a_, 2 _b_.

1890. _Comatricha longa_ Peck, _Rep. N. Y. Mus._, XLIII., p. 24.

Sporangia crowded in depressed masses or tufts, black, long, cylindric,
even, stipitate; stipe black, shining, generally very short;
hypothallus well developed, black; columella black, slender, weak,
generally dissipated some distance below the apex; capillitium of
slender brown or dusky threads anastomosing to form an open network next
the columella, but extended outwardly in form of long free slender
branchlets, now and then dichotomously forked; spore-mass blue-black,
spores by transmitted light dark brown, globose, spinulose, some of them
faintly reticulate, about 9 mu.

A very remarkable species. Rare in the west, more common, as it appears,
in the eastern states. The sporangia occur in tufts about 1 or 2 cm.
wide, springing generally from crevices in the bark of decaying logs,
especially willow and elm, in swampy places. The sporangia are
remarkable for their great length. Generally about 20-25 mm., specimens
occasionally reach 50 mm.! The capillitial branches are so remote that
the spores are scarcely retained by the capillitium at all. Well
described and figured by the author of the species, _Forty-third Rep. N.
Y. State Museum_, p. 24, Pl. 3.

New York, Pennsylva