This is almost the only taxonomic suggestion;--a mere suggestion; this microscopic bit of anxious life is but a shadow,--a shade, a shadow of a lamproderma! ORDER III CRIBRARIALES Fructification plasmodiocarpous or aethalioid, or consisting of distinct sporangia; peridia membranaceous at maturity, more or less evanescent, opening irregularly or by means of a delicate network, which involves at least the upper part of the sporangium; capillitium usually none; spores of some shade of brown, umbrine, rarely purplish. This order is distinguished--except in a single case--by the entire absence of true capillitium, the pallid or brown spores, the gradual evolution of distinct sporangia in which provision for spore-dispersal is made by peridial modification especially at the sporangium-top. =Key to the Families of the Cribrariales= _A._ Fructification plasmodiocarpous scattered as if made up of the segments of the plasmodial net LICEACAE _B._ Fructification of distinct and separate sporangia, long stipitate, opening by a delicate operculum at the top ORCADELLACEAE _C._ Fructification aethalioid, the sporangia generally more or less tubular, often prismatic by mutual pressure; opening by rupture of the apex, the lateral walls entire TUBIFERACEAE _D._ Fructification aethalioid, the sporangia ill defined, their walls more or less perforate, frayed, or dissipated, forming a pseudo-capillitium, RETICULARIACEAE _E._ Fructification of distinct and separate sporangia, the walls more or less reticulately perforate especially above CRIBRARIACEAE _A._ LICEACEAE A single genus,-- =1. Licea= (_Schrader_) _Rost._ 1797. _Licea_ Schrader, _Nov. Gen. Plant._, p. 16, in part. 1875. _Licea_ (Schrader) Rost., _Mon._, p. 218. Sporangia plasmodiocarpous, looped, irregular, or distinct, sessile, and regularly rounded or elliptical; the peridium simple, rather firm, ruptured irregularly or by simple fissure; hypothallus none. This genus is distinguished from other similar plasmodiocarpous forms by the extreme simplicity of its structure. There is absolutely no capillitium nor anything like it, simply a mass of spores surrounded by thin membranous walls. The spores range from pale olive, colorless under the lens, through various shades of brown to dusky almost black in _L. pusilla_. Schrader included the _Tubifera_ species. =Key to the Species of Licea= _A._ Plainly plasmodiocarpous 1. _L. variabilis_ _B._ Opening by regular segments. 1. Segments two only 2. _L. biforis_ 2. Segments several. i. Spores brown 3. _L. minima_ ii. Spores dusky olive 4. _L. pusilla_