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From the Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, Oct. 1892, Jan. 1893.

THE MYXOMYCETES OF THE MIAMI VALLEY, OHIO.

BY A. P. MORGAN.

First Paper.

Table of Contents

MYXOMYCETES, Wallr.

Order Genera Page LICEACEAE. 4 Licea 4 Tubulina 6 Lycogala 7 RETICULARIACEAE. 10 Reticularia 10 Clathroptychium 12 Cibraria 13 Dictydium 16 PERICHAENACEAE. 19 Perichaena 19 Ophiotheca 21 ARCYRIACEAE. 23 Lachnobolus 23 Arcyria 24 Heterotrichia 27 TRICHIACEAE. 28 Hemiarcyria 29 Calonema 33 Trichia 34 Oligonema 40 STEMONITACEAE. 43 Clastoderma 44 Lamproderma 45 Comatricha 48 Stemonitis 52 Enerthenema 56 Diachaea 56 DIDYMIACEAE. 58 Didymium 59 Spumaria 64 Diderma 66 Lepidoderma 72 PHYSARACEAE. 73 Angioridium 75 Cienkowskia 75 Leocarpus 76 Physarella 78 Cytidium 80 Craterium 84 Physarum 88 Fuligo 102 Badhamia 105 Scyphium 109

PRESTON, HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO, December 28, 1892.

MR. DAVIS L. JAMES

The work in these papers is based upon my ample collection of Myxomycetes growing in this region, comprising more than one hundred species; these have been diligently compared with specimens obtained from correspondents elsewhere in this country and in Europe.

At the same time, I have also included many extra limital species. This has been done chiefly to more clearly elucidate the subject in places where the local material is not sufficient.

The only apology I can make for the arrangement which I present, is that I have been obliged to choose from several different systems. I have aimed not to hamper myself, by attaching paramount importance to some particular character throughout.

I purpose to furnish a synopsis of the whole at the end of the work.

Very truly yours, A. P. MORGAN.

MYXOMYCETES, Wallr.

Fructification essentially a minute membranaceous vesicle, the SPORANGIUM inclosing the SPORES, the product of a motile protoplasmic body called the PLASMODIUM.

The formation of the sporangia out of the plasmodium appears under three general forms, which, however, pass into each other and are, therefore, not strictly limited.

Sporangia always sessile, simple and regular or plasmodiocarp, sometimes united into an aethalium. The wall a thin, firm, persistent membrane, often granulose-thickened, usually rupturing irregularly. Spores globose, usually some shade of umber or olivaceous, rarely violaceous.

The species of this order are the simplest of the Myxomycetes; the sporangium, with a firm, persistent wall contains only the spores. There is no trace of a capillitium, unless a few occasional threads in the wall of Tubulina prefigure such a structure. To the genera of this order is appended the anomalous genus Lycogala, which seems to me better placed here than elsewhere.

TABLE OF GENERA OF LICEACEAE.

The sporangia are not seated on a common hypothallus; they are, consequently, more or less irregularly scattered about on the substratum.

Growing on old wood. Plasmodiocarp 1-1.5 mm. in length, though sometimes confluent and longer. The wall is thick and rough, not at all shining. It is evidently the species of Schweinitz referred to by Fries under this name.

Growing on herbaceous stems sent from Texas. Sporangia about .4 mm. in diameter. The bright bay mass of spores within will serve to distinguish the species. The thin brown wall appears dark bay with the inclosed spores.

Growing on the inside bark of Liriodendron. Sporangia .25-.40 mm. in length, shaped exactly like a bivalve shell and opening in a similar manner. I have also received specimens of this curious species from Prof. J. Dearness, London, Canada.

While with this woman, after working from early morning till late at night, she was obliged to sit up all night to rock a cross, sick child. Her mistress laid upon her bed with a whip under her pillow, and slept; but if the tired nurse forgot herself for a moment, if her weary head dropped, and her hand ceased to rock the cradle, the child would cry out, and then down would come the whip upon the neck and face of the poor weary creature. The scars are still plainly visible where the whip cut into the flesh. Perhaps her mistress was preparing her, though she did not know it then, by this enforced habit of wakefulness, for the many long nights of travel, when she was the leader and guide of the weary and hunted ones who were escaping from bondage.

"Nex' ting I heard old master was dead, an' he died jus' as he libed. Oh, then, it 'peared like I'd give all de world full ob gold, if I had it, to bring dat poor soul back. But I couldn't pray for him no longer."

The slaves were told that their master's will provided that none of them should be sold out of the State. This satisfied most of them, and they were very happy. But Harriet was not satisfied; she never closed her eyes that she did not imagine she saw the horsemen coming, and heard the screams of women and children, as they were being dragged away to a far worse slavery than that they were enduring there. Harriet was married at this time to a free negro, who not only did not trouble himself about her fears, but did his best to betray her, and bring her back after she escaped. She would start up at night with the cry, "Oh, dey're comin', dey're comin', I mus' go!"

Her husband called her a fool, and said she was like old Cudjo, who when a joke went round, never laughed till half an hour after everybody else got through, and so just as all danger was past she began to be frightened. But still Harriet in fancy saw the horsemen coming, and heard the screams of terrified women and children. "And all that time, in my dreams and visions," she said, "I seemed to see a line, and on the other side of that line were green fields, and lovely flowers, and beautiful white ladies, who stretched out their arms to me over the line, but I couldn't reach them nohow. I always fell before I got to the line."

One Saturday it was whispered in the quarters that two of Harriet's sisters had been sent off with the chain-gang. That morning she started, having persuaded three of her brothers to accompany her, but they had not gone far when the brothers, appalled by the dangers before and behind them, determined to go back, and in spite of her remonstrances dragged her with them. In fear and terror, she remained over Sunday, and on Monday night a negro from another part of the plantation came privately to tell Harriet that herself and brothers were to be carried off that night. The poor old mother, who belonged to the same mistress, was just going to milk. Harriet wanted to get away without letting her know, because she knew that she would raise an uproar and prevent her going, or insist upon going with her, and the time for this was not yet. But she must give some intimation to those she was going to leave of her intention, and send such a farewell as she might to the friends and relations on the plantation. These communications were generally made by singing. They sang as they walked along the country roads, and the chorus was taken up by others, and the uninitiated knew not the hidden meaning of the words--

When dat ar ole chariot comes, I'm gwine to lebe you; I'm boun' for de promised land, I'm gwine to lebe you.

I'm sorry I'm gwine to lebe you, Farewell, oh farewell; But I'll meet you in the mornin', Farewell, oh farewell.

The Doctor passed, and she bowed as she went on, still singing:

I'll meet you in the mornin', I'm boun' for de promised land, On the oder side of Jordan, Boun' for de promised land.

She reached the gate and looked round; the Doctor had stopped his horse, and had turned around in the saddle, and was looking at her as if there might be more in this than "met the ear." Harriet closed the gate, went on a little way, came back, the Doctor still gazing at her. She lifted up the gate as if she had not latched it properly, waved her hand to him, and burst out again:

I'll meet you in the mornin', Safe in de promised land, On the oder side of Jordan, Boun' for de promised land.

But then came the bitter drop in the cup of joy. She said she felt like a man who was put in State Prison for twenty-five years. All these twenty-five years he was thinking of his home, and longing for the time when he would see it again. At last the day comes--he leaves the prison gates--he makes his way to his old home, but his old home is not there. The house has been pulled down, and a new one has been put up in its place; his family and friends are gone nobody knows where; there is no one to take him by the hand, no one to welcome him.

She came to Philadelphia, and worked in hotels, in club houses, and afterwards at Cape May. Whenever she had raised money enough to pay expenses, she would make her way back, hide herself, and in various ways give notice to those who were ready to strike for freedom. When her party was made up, they would start always on Saturday night, because advertisements could not be sent out on Sunday, which gave them one day in advance.

I will give here an article from a paper published nearly a year ago, which mentions that the price set upon the head of Harriet was much higher than I have stated it to be. When asked about this, Harriet said she did not know whether it was so, but she heard them read from one paper that the reward offered was ,000.

"Among American women," says the article referred to, "who has shown a courage and self-devotion to the welfare of others, equal to Harriet Tubman? Hear her story of going down again and again into the very jaws of slavery, to rescue her suffering people, bringing them off through perils and dangers enough to appall the stoutest heart, till she was known among them as 'Moses.'

"Think of her brave spirit, as strong as Daniel's of old, in its fearless purpose to serve God, even though the fiery furnace should be her portion. I have looked into her dark face, and wondered and admired as I listened to the thrilling deeds her lion heart had prompted her to dare. 'I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them,' she said.

"The other day, at Gerrit Smith's, I saw this heroic woman, whom the pen of genius will yet make famous, as one of the noblest Christian hearts ever inspired to lift the burdens of the wronged and oppressed, and what do you think she said to me? She had been tending and caring for our Union black soldiers in hospital during the war, and at the end of her labors was on her way home, coming in a car through New Jersey. A white man, the conductor, thrust her out of the car with such violence that she has not been able to work scarcely any since; and as she told me of the pain she had and still suffered, she said she did not know what she should have done for herself, and the old father and mother she takes care of, if Mr. Wendell Phillips had not sent her , that kept them warm through the winter. She had a letter from W. H. Seward to Maj.-Gen. Hunter, in which he says, 'I have known her long, and a nobler, higher spirit, or truer, seldom dwells in the human form.'"

At one time she collected and sent on a gang of thirty-nine fugitives in the care of others, as from some cause she was prevented from accompanying them. Sometimes, when she and her party were concealed in the woods, they saw their pursuers pass, on their horses, down the high road, tacking up the advertisements for them on the fences and trees.

Hail, oh hail ye happy spirits, Death no more shall make you fear, No grief nor sorrow, pain nor anger Shall no more distress you there.

Around him are ten thousan' angels, Always ready to 'bey comman'. Dey are always hobring round you, Till you reach the hebbenly lan'.

Jesus, Jesus will go wid you; He will lead you to his throne; He who died has gone before you, Trod de wine-press all alone.

He whose thunders shake creation; He who bids the planets roll; He who rides upon the temple, An' his scepter sways de whole.

Dark and thorny is de desert, Through de pilgrim makes his ways, Yet beyon' dis vale of sorrow, Lies de fiel's of endless days.

I give these words exactly as Harriet sang them to me to a sweet and simple Methodist air. "De first time I go by singing dis hymn, dey don't come out to me," she said, "till I listen if de coast is clar; den when I go back and sing it again, dey come out. But if I sing:

Moses go down in Egypt, Till ole Pharo' let me go; Hadn't been for Adam's fall, Shouldn't hab to died at all,

den dey don't come out, for dere's danger in de way."

And so by night travel, by hiding, by signals, by threatening, she brought the people safely to the land of liberty. But after the passage of the Fugitive Slave law, she said, "I wouldn't trust Uncle Sam wid my people no longer; I brought 'em all clar off to Canada."

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