84 Rhodora [May 
these things by treating the earth before each planting to a long soak- 
ing in water as nearly boiling hot as he could get it through the hose 
from his boilers. He had already tried the experiment on another 
bed with some success. As the Peziza fruits were in fine condition 
and unusually clean and bright for this species, a quantity was taken for 
preservation in formalin as class material. In beds near by, a few wilted 
Coprinus stalks were here and there visible, showing by their headless, 
inky condition, that it was late in the day. Beside the manure heap, 
however, outside in the cold, though somewhat sheltered by boards, 
was an abundant crop of what was probably the same species, Coprinus 
fimetarius (L.) Fr., pushing hardily up into the March wind, in some 
cases actually through the snow. An inch below the surface were 
masses of it, still unexpanded and with short stems, waiting only the 
slightest encouragement to appear in force. Another house offered for 
exploration long beds of parsley. The crop of leaves was thick, just 
ready for the market, and some square yards of the bed were already 
stripped, showing the rows of bare stems a few inches high left stand- 
ing for another growth. Search here revealed an attractive little 
reddish brown Peziza with expanded shallow cups a few lines across, 
seated apparently on the surface. Appearances were deceptive, how- 
ever, for every cup was attached to a dark slender stem, sometimes 
a line, sometimes an inch or more in length, reaching down into the 
soil, where it sprung from an irregular blackish grain or lump, that 
looked like a bit of hardened earth — a sclerotium. Search showed 
this Peziza in some abundance, particularly in parts of the bed where 
the parsley was diseased or dead. In the latter case sclerotia were 
found often in quantities in and upon the remains of the underground 
part of the plants. Some of these sclerotia bore from twenty to forty 
fruits (apothecia). The species was submitted for determination to 
Dr. W. G. Farlow who writes that it is “Sclerotinia sclerotiorum 
(Libert), in very good condition. Rehm speaks of the apothecia as 
generally solitary, but in the original specimen of Libert they are 
clustered just as in your plant, and the microscopic characters agree in 
all respects with the description. S. scderotiorum also occurs on other 
Umbelliferae, and in its conidial form is frequent in greenhouses, but 
its ascosporic form is not often seen." 
