Sordaria multicaudata (Griffiths) Sacc. & D. Sacc. 1905

Pleurage multicaudata D. Griff. Mem. Torrey
Club 11 : 85. 1901.
Sordaria multicaudata Sacc. Syll. Fung. 17; 603. 1905.
Perithecia scattered, half-sunken, about 600 X 900 /i, slightly coriaceous, greenish below when young, but finally becoming black and opaque, pyriform to globular with papilliform to cylindric, black, curved beak, bearing bunches of long, straight, dark-brown, sparingly septate hairs on its convex side, the lower portion uniformly clothed with long, flexuous, brown, septate hairs; asci 8-spored, clavate, straight or curved, contracted and rounded above and tapering below into a narrow, short stipe, quite persistent, 42-58 X 225-260 /i ; paraphyses wide, tubularventricose and but little longer than the asci ; spores 2-seriate, ellipsoid to oblong, rounded at both ends, 20-25 X 40-55 //, ranging from hyaline when young through olivaceous or yellow to dark-brown and opaque ; primary appendages entirely absent ; secondary appendages forming short, awl-shaped, gelatinous, very fugacious, hyaline projections covering the entire spore ; projections shortest about the equator and gradually increasing in length toward the ends of the spore, but never reaching a length equal to it.
On cow dung.
Type locality : Highmore, South Dakota.
Distribution ; South Dakota to Mississippi.