nia, Ohio, Iowa.

5. COMATRICHA IRREGULARIS _Rex._

1891. _Comatricha irregularis_ Rex, _Proc. Phil. Acad._, p. 393.

Sporangia crowded in flocculent tufts, very dark brown or black,
semi-erect or drooping, 4-5 mm. in height, irregularly cylindric,
variable, stipitate; stipe black, distinct, often one-half the total
height; hypothallus well developed, brown, shining; columella central,
slender, flexuous, reaching the apex, where it blends, by branching,
with the capillitium; capillitium loose, open, composed of arcuate
threads which radiate from the columella, and are joined together,
forming a central, irregular reticulation of large meshes, brown, paler
toward the surface, where the free ends are sometimes colorless;
spore-mass black, spores by transmitted light brown, minutely warted,
7-8 mu.

Related, no doubt, to _C. longa_, but differing in habit, stature, as in
texture and structure of the capillitium. In _C. longa_ the inner net is
extremely simple,--a row or two of meshes at most, and the radiating
branches are long and straight; in the species before us the inner
network is well developed, and the radiating branches proportionately
shorter and abundantly branching, with pale or white free tips.

Generally, though not always, found growing in the crevices of the bark
on fallen logs of various deciduous trees. September. Not common.

This is thought to be _C. crypta_ Schw., _N. A. F._, 2351; but the
description under that number does not make clear what form Schweinitz
had before him, the present species or _C. longa_, and the herbarium
specimen of Schweinitz is "utterly lost"; the later specific name is
accordingly adopted.

New England west to the Cascade Mountains; south to Kansas and Texas.

6. COMATRICHA LAXA _Rostafinski._

PLATE V., Figs. 5, 5 _a_.

1875. _Comatricha laxa_ Rost., _Mon._, p. 201.
1877. _Lamproderma ellisiana_ Cooke, _Myx. U. S._, p. 397.
1891. _Comatricha ellisiana_ (Cooke) Ell. & Ev., _N. A. F._, 2696.

Sporangia scattered, gregarious, sub-globose or short cylindric, and
obtuse, dusky stipitate; stipe short, black, tapering rapidly upward
from an expanded base; hypothallus scant or none; columella erect,
rigid, sometimes reaching nearly to the apex of the sporangium,
sometimes dichotomously branched a little below the summit, before
blending into the common capillitium; capillitium lax, of slender,
horizontal branches, anastomosing at infrequent intervals and end