MYCETOZOA IN EPPING FOREST IN 1946-7 55
September—Forty-six species including Tubifera ferruginosa, Liceopsis
lobata and Craterium aureum; total since the end of February
fifty-five species.
October—Forty-seven species including Trichia floriformis, Hemitrichia
clavata and Badhamia macrocarpa; total since the end of Febru-
ary sixty-two species.
November—Forty species; total since the end of February sixty-five
species.
December—Twenty-seven species.
January—Twenty-five species including Physarum contextum and
Comatricha rubens; total since the end of February sixty-eight
species.
February—No hunting undertaken.
At the October meeting I exhibited several species, some
because I thought them fine specimens and others because of
their rarity in Epping Forest. The rare species were Tubifera
ferruginosa, Liceopsis lobata and Hemitrichia clavata, none of
which had been reported since 1941. Some sporangia of T.
ferruginosa had conical tops. Liceopsis lobata was found on
the underside of a piece of wood, in company with Areyria
ferruginea, A. pomiformis and Cribraria vulgaris. The sporangia
of L. lobata were not so closely clustered as usual; some were
quite free, and one was definitely stalked; a second group
showed strands of hypothallus. The gathering of H. clavata
contained but six sporangia ; in November a group having only
three sporangia was collected. A species hew to Epping Forest,
Trichia floriformis, was exhibited for me by Miss Lister at our
November meeting (see Essex Naturalist, vol. 28, p. 19).
Although after October additions to the list were few, a
redeeming feature was the gathering of a group of sporangia of
Physarum contextum, a species only recorded once previously for
the Forest, in January 1938. This year it was found on Janu-
ary 4th, and was picked up among a handful of leaves within
twenty yards of the spot where I found it nine years before. It
had developed on a much-decayed, brittle elm leaf, and was
covered by a layer of two or three leaves held together by a
twiggy growth. The outer layer of the sporangium wall is, in
some cases, fissured, and in others has partly flaked off, leaving
the thin inner layer exposed. From the situation it is possible
that the species may have been missed in some previous years.
In the plantation at the Warren, Loughton, where quantities
of leaves, largely beech, are held in position by brambles,
Didymium laxifila, a species hitherto found only in the Forest,
occurs. It may be found in any month of the year, not always
in good preservation, but usually in an easily recognisable state,
at varying depths in the leaf beds according to the amount of
recent rainfall and the level to which the leaves have remained
moist. It is rarely, if ever, found exposed on the topmost layer