STUDIES OF AMERICAN FUNGI. 



where the plant enters the rotton wood. While these small species 

 of puff-balls are not injurious to eat, they do not seem to possess an 

 agreeable flavor. There are quite a number of species in this 

 country which cannot be enumerated here. 



Related to the puff-balls, and properly classed with them, are the 

 species of Scleroderma. This name is given to the genus because 

 of the hard peridium, the wall being much firmer and harder than in 

 Lycoperdon. There are two species which are not uncommon, Sclero- 

 derma vulgare and 5. -cerrncosum. They grow on the ground or on 

 very rotten wood, and are sessile, often showing the root-like white 

 strands attached to their base. They vary in size from 2-6 cm. and 

 the outer wall is cracked into numerous coarse areas, or warts, giving 

 the plant a verrucose appearance, from which one of the species gets 

 its specific name. 



Calostoma cinnabarinum Desv. This is a remarkably beautiful plant 

 with a general distribution in the Eastern United States. It has often 

 been referred to in this country under the genus name Mitremyces, 

 and sometimes has been confused with a rarer and different species, 

 Calostoma lutescens (Schw.) Burnap. It grows in damp woods, 

 usually along the banks of streams and along mountain roads. It is 

 remarkable for the brilliant vermilion color of the inner surface of the 

 outer layer of the wall (exoperidium) t which is exposed by splitting 

 into radial strips that curl and twist themselves off, and by the ver- 

 milion color of the edges of the teeth at the apex of the inner wall 

 (endoperidiuiri). The plant is 2-8 cm. high, and 1-2 cm. in diam- 

 eter. When mature the base or stem, which is formed of reticulated 

 and anastomosing cords, elongates and lifts the rounded or oval fruit- 

 ing portion to some distance above the surface of the ground, when 

 the gelatinous volva ruptures and falls to the ground or partly clings 

 to the stem, exposing the peridium, the outer portion of which then 

 splits in the manner described. 



When the plant is first seen above the ground it appears as a 

 globose or rounded body, and in wet weather has a very thick gelatin- 

 ous layer surrounding it. This is the volva and is formed by the 

 gelatinization of the outer layer of threads which compose it. This 

 gelatinous layer is thick and also viscid, and when the plants are 

 placed on paper to dry, it glues them firmly to the sheet. When the 

 outer layer of the peridium splits, it does so by splitting from the base 

 toward the apex, or from the apex toward the base. Of the large 

 number of specimens which I have seen at Blowing Rock, N. C., the 

 split more often begins at the apex, or at least, when the slit is com- 

 plete, the strips usually stand out loosely in a radiate manner, the 



