THEIR HABITATS GENERALLY. 23
or amongst beds of Alpine Monkshood, another habitat for Myce-
tozoa is met with. A number of species may be found not only
outside the bases of the previous year's flowering stems, but
within the hollow stalks, where they feed and fruit protected
from many clangers. On splitting open the stalks, one usually
sees them veined with tracks of plasmodium, and often may
be rewarded by finding black clusters of the puzzling alpine
species of Lamproderma, or Perichaena vermicularis, the alpine
form of which has bright rosy plasmodium. I cannot hope to
convey an adequate idea of the charm these hunting grounds
possess, nor how refreshing it is, after the eye has been long
and intently searching close to the ground, to look up and survey
the general landscape, which often includes a vision of dazzling
snow-peaks seen under the blue of a Swiss sky. Snell associa-
tions can never be forgotten.
Heath and Moorland and Bog.—These habitats blend
into each other, and have yielded hitherto but scanty harvests
of Mycetozoa. Didymium melanospermum is sometimes abundant
among heather. Diderma simplex has also been found about
the bases of old heather and on peaty soil in Surrey, Wales,
and Scotland ; the reddish-brown colour of the plasmodium
and sporangia harmonises with the old brown-heather leaves
and renders the species inconspicuous. On open heaths,
the debris of old gorse and broom thickets often repays examina-
tion. About rough gorse hedges, in Co. Down, Mrs. Stelfox
has been rewarded by finding small growths of many unexpected
species, including Margarita metallica and Prototrichia metallica.
Amongst whortleberry bushes and pine needles at Woburn
Sands, Miss K. Higgins discovered the finest growth I have
seen of Leptoderma iridescens. On beds of Reindeer-moss {Cladina
rangiferina) growing on heaths, Listerella paradoxa has been
obtained repeatedly in North Germany ; the sporangia look
like specks of black soil scattered over the pale lichen stems,
and may most easily escape detection.
Moors and bogs are usually far from the haunts of men ;
Mycetozoa fruiting there are easily washed away and have often
little chance of being observed.
On the moorland clothing the slopes of Aran Mawddwy,
in North Wales, was found the first British gathering of Fuligo
muscorum ; the bright apricot plasmodium had climbed up a