CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE CRYPTOGAMIC LABORATORY OF 

 HARVARD UNIVERSITY. — LI. 



ON CAULOGLOSSUM TRANSVERSARIUM Fries (Bosc). 



By John R. Johnston. 



Received May 15. Presented May 14, by Roland Thaxter. 



The remarkable fungus which forms the subject of the present paper 

 was described under the name Lycoperdon transversarium as early as 

 1811, by M. Bosc (3). It has since been reported only occasionally, and 

 the numerous descriptions of it which exist are mostly copies of previous 

 ones, no further information having, up to the present time, been avail- 

 able in regard to its structure or development than is contained in the 

 early description of Bosc. 



Through the kindness of Professor Thaxter, I have had the use for 

 study of alcoholic and of dried material of this form, which was collected 

 bv him in Florida during the month of October, and which included both 

 mature and young specimens. 



General Structure. 



The mature specimens examined are club-shaped, stipitate, and olive- 

 brown ; from three to seven centimeters in height. They vary from 

 narrowly to broadly clavate, that is, from 1.5 cm. to 2.5 cm. in diameter, 

 in specimens of the same length. Fig. 2 represents a narrowly clavate 

 form with fibrillose base ; in fig. 3 is illustrated an individual with a 

 much greater diameter, the base being expanded for attachment to the 

 substratum. The stipe is distinguished usually as the narrowed base of 

 the fruiting body and by its whitish color. The peridium is simple ; it 

 ruptures irregularly and indefinitely, and covers the entire gleba. It 

 consists of loosely interwoven hyphae, which become spread apart at 

 various points, exposing the chambers of the gleba beneath (figs. 3 and 

 11) ; and in some mature specimens is even more or less evanescent, the 

 exposure of the glebal chambers giving a honeycombed appearance to 

 the entire surface. An area of this nature, in which the characteris- 

 tically anastomosing glebal folds are thus exposed, and in which the 



