38 Rhodora [APRIL 
are strongly opposed to trespassers, so much so that in 1906 I found 
it best to obtain express permission to search each piece of territory I 
hunted over, and I was requested to keep out of growing crops, newly 
plowed fields, and not to smoke — all reasonable requests. 
The past season marked, I hope, the culmination of four successive 
dry seasons in Eastern Massachusetts. Yet the botanist should, 
after all, be grateful for such meteorological conditions, for they may 
be necessary to cause some fungi to fruit, that otherwise would not 
appear. Too much moisture usually produces premature decay, too 
much dryness induces immaturity in the species commonly met with 
in our wanderings. 
I began search for fungi May 10 ult. and was much chagrined to 
find that Nature had anticipated me by bringing to maturity Morchella 
esculenta Pers. many days earlier than usual. Repeated efforts, 
however, were rewarded bountifully and my taste was gratified with 
several meals. At this time excellent and numerous specimens were 
found in all stages of growth, of Entoloma clypeatum L. (the dull 
yellow form), in an apple tree orchard and in identically the same 
situs where in 1909 I found Omphalia pyxidata Bull, an absurdly 
named fungus, as it seems to me. Between May 12 and October 30 
ult. I collected at intervals Dr. Peck's species Entoloma strictius. I 
believe this species to be very variable in color and size and frequently 
productive of doubt as to its identity. Even Dr. Peck is puzzled at 
times as we may learn from this quotation taken from a personal 
note received last October: “On my trip to the Adirondacks in 
June I kept finding now and then in the sphagnous swamps an Ento- 
loma which I did not recognize. It would occur one or two in a place, 
the pileus was generally conical or subcampanulate, varying somewhat 
in color but usually dark brown when moist and the whole plant was 
quite fragile. I was disposed to think I had a new thing, till I found 
in similar places a form with more convex pileus and decidedly um- 
bonate, which connected very njcely with E. strictius and knocked the 
new species idea completely out of my head. The type of the species 
was collected in the fall but I now know from my own and others’ 
experience that it may also occur in spring and summer, and that it is 
much more variable than I formerly supposed.” In May I found no 
less than eight specimens of this species of large size growing from a 
common base. On the opposite side of the same swamp in mixed 
woods I found the largest individuals I have ever met with; they were 
