SHEAR: MycoLocicAL NoTEes AND NEW SPECIES 451 
fragile when dry, sessile or occasionally very short stipitate, rup- 
turing more or less irregularly in longitudinal slits from the apex ; 
columella not well developed, usually not reaching the apex of 
the peridium ; gleba composed of closely anastomosing thin plates 
forming more or less elongated longitudinal cells, pale sulphur 
yellow when dry, becoming slightly brownish at maturity ; spores 
spherical or subspherical, pale creamy white, smooth, guttulate, 
8—12 4 diam., frequently with a very short pedicel. 
Type no. 1630, D. Griffiths, mesa near Tucson, Arizona, Sept. 
1900. Type material also distributed in Griffiths, West American 
Fungi, no. 323. 
This species seems more nearly related to S. Warnei Pk. than 
any other known species. It differs, however, in its much smaller 
Size, different mode of dehiscence and lighter colored peridium and 
gleba, as well as in the poorly developed columella which appears 
to but rarely, if ever, reach the apex of the peridium and is some- 
times almost or quite lacking. 
Scleroderma pteridis sp. nov. 
Peridium globose or depressed-globose, sessile, sordid white 
or faintly yellowish, irregularly squamose, fibrose-radicate, 3-6 
cm. diameter ; wall 3-8 mm. thick, separating from the gleba in 
drying ; gleba firm, somewhat indistinctly areolate, purplish-brown ; 
columella none; spores irregularly globose, purplish-brown, 
roughened with short spines, 6—8 » diameter. 
Growing attached to dead rhizomes of Pteris agutlina in the 
side of a recent excavation, two to four feet below the surface and 
embedded in the earth. 
Type no. 1115 collected by the writer, wagon road near 
Baker Creek, six miles west of McMinnville, Oregon, July, 1899. 
The plant seems most nearly related to Scleroderma Geaster. 
None of the specimens were entirely mature so that the method of 
dehiscence is uncertain ; but the peridium is much thicker and the 
Spores smaller and lighter colored than in S. Geaster. The plant 
1S remarkable on account of its subterranean habit and its connec- 
tion with the rhizomes of Preris. 
Cucurbitaria celtidis sp. nov. 
Perithecia .35-.5 mm. in diameter, densely gregarious or sub- 
Cespitose, covering continuous areas of dead branches, erumpent 
°r partially immersed in the bark, depressed globose, carbonaceous, 
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