Saprolegnia delica

Saprolegnia delica Coker, Saproleg. 30. 1923
Growth delicate and lax; the hyphae straight and simple at first, then much branched; sporangia long, nearly cylindric or later irregular, abundant, repeatedly proliferating from within not rarely laterally from below; spores 10.5-1 1.5 ju in diameter; gemmae plentiful or few, spheric or pyriform to fusiform or clavate, often in moniliform chains; oogonia typically spheric, abundant, 40-70 /z in diameter, averaging about 55-60 /z, terminating the main branches, also racemosely borne throughout on rather long or rarely short lateral branches, usually at least twice as long as the diameter of the oogonia; wall smooth, colorless, thin, about 1.8 /j thick, furnished with rather few pits; eggs mostly 1-6, often 8, very rarely up to 16 (in abnormal cases when large oogonia are filled with very small eggs there may be up to 40), centric, averaging about 25-27 ju, with extremes of 14.8-33 /x, smallest often in oogonia of normal size, not rarely mixed with the larger; antheridial branches abundant, long and rambling, usually diclinous, rather stout, persistent; antheridia present, usually numerous, on nearly all oogonia (95-100%), each oogonium typically furnished with at least one diclinous antheridium, at times with androgynous ones also, occasionally absent from oogonia that terminate long branches, pyriform or irregularly oblong, well filled with protoplasm; antheridial tubes present.
Type locality: Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Habitat: Fresh water and soil.
Distribution: North Carolina; also in Europe.