268
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
are Mycena adonis and Boletus castaneus. This latter species was rather
common this year, but in most years it is not frequent."
Miss Lister reports as follows :—
MYCETOZOA FOUND ON THE OCCASION OF THE CLUB'S
FUNGUS FORAY, 20 OCTOBER 1917.
A considerable amount of rain had fallen on the previous day, which
had probably washed away delicate specimens, and no very showy develop-
ments of Mycetozoa were met with, but the diligent search of a number
of keen hunters resulted in twenty-six species being found. Two of
these had not been recorded previously for Essex. The following is
a list of the species obtained.—
Badhamia utricularis (Bull.) Berk.—Seen in "plasmodium" stage only.
Physarum nutans Pers.—Found in old and young condition, both
the typical form and var. leucophaeum.
Fuligo septica Gmel. var. candida.—One mouldy aethalium only of
this species, which is abundant in the summer, was found, and that was
of the white form, which is far less common than the yellow.
F. cinerea (Schw.) Morg. var ecorticata.—This occurred on a heap of
dead leaves and twigs under a birch tree ; it was emerging as an irregular
mass of white plasmodium and looked rather like torn bread-crumb.
After a few days' nursing indoors, it developed into an inconspicuous
purplish-grey aethalium, entirely without cortex, and with the fragile
sporangium walls free from all deposits of lime granules, which are,
however, abundant in the large branching lime-knots ; the spores are
globose, 9 to 10u diam. This variety has only once before been re-
corded for Essex. The typical form, in which the aethalia are clothed
with a smooth white cortex and the spores are oval, was found for the
first time in the county last August, when Miss Hibbert-Ware obtained
it on old. straw at the base of a haystack near Theydon. Elsewhere
in Britain, the typical form has. been recorded from Buckinghamshire,
Bedfordshire (where it was very abundant in the early autumn of some
years on straw heaps). Somerset, and Cheshire ; the only other British
records of the var. ecorticata are from Berkshire, Warwickshire, Elgin-
shire, and Nairnshire.
Craterium minutum (Leers) Fries.—One group only found on a holly-
leaf.
Leocarpus fragilis (Dicks.) Rost.—Found on twigs, grass-stalks, and
dead leaves.
Diderma floriforme Pers.—A fine development of this infrequent
species was obtained by Mr. Ross on a log in the Chingford forest.
D. effusum (Schw.) Morg.—On holly leaves.
D. deplanatum Fries.—A group of the curious C- and S-shaped plas-
modiocarps was found scattered over a leaf under a holly tree. When
first found, they were immature ; but, after being kept moist for several
days, they developed the characteristic orange-brown inner sporangium-
walls and dark warted capillitium threads. This is the first record of
the species for Essex. In the British Museum Catalogue, it is placed as
a variety of D. niveum (Rost.) Macbr., to which it is closely allied. Typical
D. niveum has, however, crowded hemispherical sporangia, and is an