ex less calcareous porose, yellowish brown,
fructification definite, pulvinate _F. rufa_

3. Form _c._ Cortex smooth, persistent; fructification
small, less than two inches _F. laevis_

4. Form _d._ Plasmodium yellow; cortex none; capillitium
yellow, fructification thin, sometimes wide-spread _F. flava_

5. Form _e._ Plasmodium violaceous, dark; cortex almost
none; whole mass reddish or violet _F. violacea_

1. Form _a._ _Fuligo ovata_ (Schaeff.) Pers.

Plasmodium bright yellow; aethalium pale brown, or yellowish-ochraceous,
of variable size and shape, one to many cm. in diameter, and one to two
cm. thick, enclosed by a distinct calcareous crust, which varies in
texture, thickness, and color; capillitium well developed but variable
in color, form, and extent; spore-mass dull black, sooty; spores
spherical, purplish brown, nearly smooth, 7-9 mu.

Under this name may be placed our most common form. Rising with an
abundant yellowish creamy plasmodium from masses of decaying vegetation,
lumber, sawdust, half buried logs, it creeps about with energy
unsurpassed, coming to rest only in some position specially exposed, as
the top of a log or stump, the face of a stone or post, or even the high
clods of a cultivated field! The fructification is large, yellow, or at
most pale ochraceous, the surface when mature extremely friable like dry
foam. Bulliard figures this phase well on Plate 424, Fig. 2, and calls
it _Reticularia_ (_Fuligo_) _hortensis_, from its affecting the soils of
gardens. More than thirty fructifications have appeared at one time,
varying in size from one to twenty cm. in a field of potatoes, well
tilled, and less than an acre in extent! Such is life's perennial
exuberance on this time-worn old world of ours!

Schaeffer's plate CXII represents probably the same thing. So also
Bolton's plate, CXXXIV. Sowerby's Fig. 2 on plate 199, and figures 1 and
2 on Greville's plate 272 possibly also depict this form. Persoon calls
this _F. vaporaria_ because it frequents hotbeds and the like, and
believes this to represent the "_untuosus flavus_" of Linnee, although
he thinks Schaeffer's specimens do not. The calcareous internal structure
is white.

2. Form _b_, _F. rufa_ Pers.

This type of Fuligo is very different from the preceding in form, habit,
and color. In form it is much more definite, usually thick, we