Clavariacese 



B. SPORES OCHRACEOUS OR CINNAMON. 



Clavaria. * Plant yellow or dingy ochraceous. 

 ** Growing on wood. 



SYNCORYNE (Gr. together; a club). Page 523. 

 Clubs almost simple, tufted at the base. 



HOLOCORYNE ( Gr. entire; a club). Page 524. 

 Clubs almost simple, distinct at the base. 



Excepting to toadstool hunters the Clavaria, though numerous, are 

 not known to those who "Know a toadstool when they see it." They 

 bear no semblance to the stereotyped toadstool. They seem to possess 

 an imitative faculty. Those growing among grasses harmonize with 

 the faded stalks under debris or the bleached surfaces of blades famish- 

 ing for sunlight ; those of the woods take on the color of the leaf mat or 

 of the lichens, and shapes of club and deer-horn mosses, or assemble in 

 groves as pigmy trees, boled and sturdy-branched in mimicry of their 

 giant protectors towering above them. In their forms many are deli- 

 cate, graceful, beautiful, others are intricate. There is fascination for 

 eye and brain in looking through the vistas and labyrinths of their 

 branches. 



A few species are tough as shoe-strings; a few bitter; one, C. dicho- 

 toma, on the authority of Leuba, contains a minor poison. The genus 

 is plentiful and reliable. Many individuals are of marked excellence. 

 In soups, stews, patties, they remind one of noodles; sometimes of 

 macaroni. The hard parts of the stem should be removed, the branches 

 broken or cut in % in. lengths. If stewed, they require time and slow 

 cooking; if fried in butter they are crisp, choice bits. 



RAMA'RIA ratnus, a branch. 

 Branched, branches attenuated upward. 



A. SPORES WHITE OR PALLID. 

 * Plant, color bright, red, yellow or violet. 



C. fla'va Schaeff. yellow. Fragile, trunk thick, fleshy, white, very 

 much branched. Branches even, round, fastigiate, obtuse, yellow. 

 Fries. 



