Lycoperdaceee 



C. g'igailtea Batsch. gigantic. (Z. bovista Linn. ; L. maximum Caivatia. 

 Schaeff. ; L. giganteum Batsch.) Very large, 10-20 in. in diameter, 

 obconic or depressed-globose, nearly or quite sessile, white or whitish, 

 becoming discolored by age, smooth or slightly roughened by weak 

 spinose or minute floccose warts, sometimes cracking in areas; capilli- 

 tium and spores yellowish-green to dingy-olive. Spores smooth, 4/x. in. 

 in diameter. Edible. Peck, 32d Rep. N. Y. State Bot. 



Spores globose, even or sometimes minutely warted, 3.5-4.5 in. in 

 diameter, often with a minute pedicel. Morgan. 



Common over the states. Growing on the ground in grassy pl-aces 

 in fields and woods. August to October. 



As the name implies, this species is gigantic. It is the largest of all 

 fungi. It has attained the diameter of three feet in this country, but is 

 reported larger in Europe. I have found it in West Virginia weighing 

 nine pounds, but one is reported as found in Gordon Park weighing 

 forty-seven pounds. I have often followed the advice of Vittadini and 

 sliced a meal for my family from growing individuals. The cut surface 

 contracts and dries. The plant seems to be deprived of its power to 

 further ripen. It can thus be cut for many days. It has other than 

 food uses in its dry form as a sponge, as tinder, as a color, as a styptic 

 in hemorrhage ; the Finns make a remedy of it for diarrhea in calves, 

 and it is burned under bee-hives to stupefy bees. 



It, as well as L. cyathiforme, is an admirable and delicate fungus. 



C. pachyder'ma Pk. Gr. thick-skinned. Peridilim very large, 

 globose or obovoid, often irregular, with a thick cord-like root; cortex 

 thin, smooth, whitish, persistent, drying up into polygonal areolse 

 which are white in the center with a brown border ; inner peridium very 

 thick but fragile, with a separable membranaceous lining, after maturity 

 gradually breaking up into fragments and falling away. Subgleba ob- 

 solete ; mass of spores and capillitium greenish-yellow then olive-brown ; 

 the threads very long, occasionally septate, branched, mostly thinner 

 than the spores. Spores globose, distinctly warted, $-6^ in diameter, 

 sometimes with a minute pedicel. 



Growing on the ground. Arizona, Pringlc; Dakota, Miss Nellie 

 Crouch. Peridilim 4-8 in. in diameter. Remarkable for its thick 

 peridium, which becomes white spotted and areolate. Morgan, 



I have not seen this species. 



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