236 University of California Puhlicaiions in Botany [Vol. 6 



solid stipe is subcylindrie or contorted and tapers toward the base. 

 The surface is flavous above, red or streaked with red below, and 

 longitudinally furrowed with a smooth or minutely scurfy .surface. 

 The stipe varies in diameter from 0.3 to 1.5 cm. and in length from 

 3 to 8 cm. 



On account of the variations in our Californian plants noted above, 

 it has seemed best to give an account of both the morphological differ- 

 ences and the histological structures of certain plants to be designated 

 as forms A, B, C, D, etc. 



Ceriomyces communis, Form A 



Plate 21, figure 2 



A single plant from the eastern United States, contributed by Dr. 

 W. A. Murrill, was available for study. On account of the specimen 

 being dried nothing definite can be said of the color characters. In 

 its morpholog3\ however, this plant exhibits certain variations from 

 our California plants referred to this species. The stipe is not at all 

 swollen in the lower portion nor does it become abruptly attenuate 

 at the base. This abrupt narrowing of the stipe almost to a point is 

 very characteristic of certain of our California forms. As far as may 

 be judged from dried material, the context of the pileus is thicker in 

 this specimen than it is in most of the plants in this region, the tubes 

 are also shorter, and the mouths neither .so large nor so irregular as 

 in Californian plants. 



Histology 



The surface of the pileus is but very slightly differentiated. The 

 tips of the hyphae at the surface of the pileus are .slightly swollen 

 and brownish in color but otherwise there is no difference between 

 the hyphae of the surface and those of the context. There is neither 

 a prolongation of the surface hyphae into hair-like structures, nor are 

 the hyphae more densely interwoven. There is likewise no evidence 

 of a gelatinous covering to the pileus. The hyphae of the context are 

 closely interwoven, hyaline, branching, and anastomosing. These 

 hyphae are 4 to 6//, in diameter but vary considerably in different parts 

 of the same hypha (pi. 24, fig. 24). 



The hymenium lining the interior of the tubes is made up of 

 basidia and paraphyses, together with certain dark red or black bodies 

 imbedded among the basidia and paraphyses and projecting above 



