An Interesting Discovery of a Rare Slime—Mold

Abstract

Enerthenema Berkeleyanum Rost. is one of the rarest of the Mycetozoa, or slime-molds, so rare, indeed, that but two occurrences have heretofore been recorded. It differs mainly from Enerthenema papillatum (Pers.) Rost., the only other species of the genus, in that the spores are clustered while in the latter species they are free. Several minor differences also exist. The form with clustered spores was first recorded by Berkeley and Broome (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., II. 5: 366) as occurring on boards from South Carolina. Rostafinski (Mon., App. p. 29, 1876), referring to this collection, which probably he had seen, established the species principally on the difference in spore structure. As Berkeley and Broome's description was not quite clear, Lister (Mon. Mycet. Ed. 2, p. 161, 1911), after an examination of the original specimen in the Kew Herbarium, concluded that the earlier students had been in error, and had mistaken the clustered spores of a parasitic fungus to be those of the slimemold.