ith
minute white flecks: capillitium scanty, the calcareous nodes small,
rounded, elongate, white! columella none; spores violet-brown,
distinctly warted, 10-12 mu.

Having been assured on information believed trustworthy that the
Schweinitzian herbarium confirmed the identity of the species before us,
in the first edition of this work the form was listed as _P. atrum_
Schw. Meantime in the herbarium referred to, at Philadelphia the
original type of _P. atrum_ still exists. My valued correspondent, Mr.
Hugo Bilgram, has recently given it careful study. It is a limeless _P.
didermoides_ (Pers.) R.! Small wonder we have had trouble! Exit
_Physarum atrum_ Schw.

The species is not uncommon, especially eastward; has been generally
ignored for reasons cited.

Distinguished from everything else by the color and small size of the
heaped sporangia. It resembles some phase of _P. virescens_ where the
sporangia are small and somewhat heaped or rather aggregated, and
scantily supplied with lime; but in such case the lime is yellow and the
spores are small.

This species has also been constantly referred to our confused _P.
cinereum_, _P. plumbeum_, etc., but Schweinitz, who certainly had seen
_P. cinereum_ in Europe, since he cites it, under several forms, in the
_Conspectus_, found the species in America and proceeded in Pennsylvania
in December to find something else, very different as he thought, and in
fact. He called this new discovery _P. atrum_, "beautifully
_reticulate_", he says "like _P. cinereum_ but larger."

Most American students in an effort to keep faith with their pioneer
mycologist, have taken cue from the specific name, looking for something
_black_, heedless that in Pennsylvania almost any delicate thing has
'dark looks' in the middle of the winter! Berlese in Saccardo _Syll._
VII., p. 350, regarding _P. atrum_ as a synonym, writes for the black
American specimens, _P. reticulatum_, emphasizing another Schweinitzian
descriptive adjective. But _P. atrum_ Schw. has had place in literature
to this hour.

19. PHYSARUM MELLEUM (_Berk. & Br._) _Mass._

1873. _Dydymium melleum_ Berk. & Br., _Jour. Linn. Soc._, XIV., p. 83.
1873. _Didymium chrysopeplum_ Berk. & C., _Grev._, II., p. 53.
1876. _Physarum schumacheri_ Spr. var. _melleum_ Rost., _Mon., App._,
p. 7.
1892. _Physarum melleum_ Massee, _Mon._, p. 278.
1896. _Cytidium melleum_ (Berk. & Br.), Morg., _Jour. Cin. Soc._,