302 University of California Publications in Botany [Vol. 6 



"Under oak on top of ground beneath leaves, Piedmont Park, Oakland, 

 Calif., Apr. 4, 1903." No. 97, U. C. Col. Type. N.L.Gardner. 



"Hypogaeous under Quercus agrifolia. Leona Heights, east of Oak- 

 land, Calif., Mar. 4, 1905." "Under Quercus agrifolia. Berkeley, 

 Calif., Apr. 29, 1905." No. 249, U. C. Col. N.L.Gardner. 



"Beneath surface of ground under oaks, Contra Costa Co., Calif., 

 May." No. 89, Hk. Coll. Referred to G. sphaerica. 



Harkness quotes No. 89 under the name Genea sphaerica Tul. 

 (Harkness, 1899, p. 263). The plants under this number in his col- 

 lection, however, differ from the descriptions (Tulasne, 1851, p. 120, 

 Fischer, 1897a, p. 24) of the above-named species in having much 

 larger asci (those cited for G. sphaerica being 190-220 by 28-35;U.) ; in 

 the form of the ascocarp which in G. sphaerica is said to be more or less 

 regularly globose with large anastomosing projections from the inner 

 wall extending into the cavity ; in the spores, those of the Californian 

 plant being much more nearly globose than described for G. sphaerica 

 and having much larger papillae bearing small secondary papillae 

 which are not mentioned in descriptions of G. sphaerica ; and finally 

 in the interrupted hymenium, which character is so conspicuous in 

 our species that it must certainly have been noticed and recorded if 

 it were present in the European plants. 



This species differs from G. Harknessii in the much more irregular 

 ascocarp, absence of projections from inner wall, generally deeper 

 color, lower verrucosities of surface, larger spores and asci, and in the 

 shape and sculpturing of the spore, that of G. Gardnerii being nearly 

 globose with more dense and much larger papillae. A hasty compari- 

 son of the ascocarps is insufficient, however, to distinguish between the 

 two, for both are dark-colored and strongly verrucose, and may easily 

 be mistaken for each other in the field. This evidently occurred in 

 the case of the two citations given above under No. 249, for both 

 species were found in the bottle bearing that number. 



G. Gardnerii comes very near descriptions of G. Klotzschii, the 

 spores of our species measuring a little smaller but of the same general 

 type. However, while Bucholtz (1903, p. 162), in a comparison of 

 the genera of the Tuberales, makes the statement that the hymenium 

 of G. Klotzschii is not an uninterrupted layer, apparently this condi- 

 tion is not conspicuous, for I find no mention of it in any description 

 of the species ; neither do I find an account of branched paraphyses. 

 In an Italian specimen from Mattirolo in the University of California 

 herbarium, labeled G. Klotzschii, occasional strands of sterile tissue 



