New England to Iowa, South Dakota, Washington, and British Columbia. Professor Shimek brings a _dusky_ phase from Nicaragua!--the type?
The plasmodium is white on maple stems, more creamy on stems of linden, on which wood it is more rarely found: occasionally on ash-stumps; even on the fallen bark of trees preferred.
In 1875 in his famous _Monograph_, Rostafinski set out three species with "dusky violet spores". These are his Nos. 94, 95 and 96.
The first one of these he calls _S. fusca_, "spore-mass, etc., violet-black, individual spore clear violet, smooth, 7-9 u."
The second species he writes down _S. dictyospora_, "hypothallus, stalk, columella, capillitium and spore-mass, violet-black, spore netted and fringed, clear-violet, 7-9 µ."
The third species is _S. splendens_, "hypothallus stalk, columella and spore-mass violet-black, spore smooth, clear-violet, 7-8 µ."
It will be observed that in color down to color of the spore by transmitted light, the three species are exactly the same; constitute a suite, so to say. It has since turned out, as noted under our No. 3, that the spores of _S. fusca_ are netted. Error in description here is not surprising; the reticulations are sometimes faint. In _S. dictyospora_ they are admittedly strong, and the inference was that the '_gladkie_' spores of the third species might be netted also. This is no criticism: lenses were fifty years since not nearly so good for such discoveries as the oil-immersion is now.
However; Rostafinski made his specific diagnosis turn largely upon the mesh-width in the superficial net. This comes out in the '_opis_' following the description, and upon _this_ the European decision in Rostafinski's favor as against _S. morgani_ largely turns. Tropical gatherings are probably always darker, and evidently from such, from the north coast of South America, the original description was drawn. Specimens before us from the same latitude are dusky indeed; no clear brown at all, but purplish withal.
For the sake of harmony we may therefore now substitute the earlier name "with reservations"! but our description remains as before, presenting the really splendid, shining things that adorn our northern fields. Dr. Rostafinski called the large open meshes of the net '_oka_', eyes; _lumina_ let us say! quite uniform they are in 9 and 10, much less so in 8.