124 THE PLANT WORLD 



are of exceedingly slow growth, reaching a height of four feet in three 

 hundred years. As the rate decreases with advancing age, a supply 

 accumulated during centuries would be readily exhausted. 



But even the giant of Orotava was not immortal, and Le Dru, after 

 a careful examination made early in this century, prophesied that it 

 had only one hundred and fifty years more of life. In 1819, a great 

 storm broke off one of the branches — nine feet in circumference — which 

 was sent to England to be exhibited at Kew. The trunk was buttres- 

 sed and otherwise artificially strengthened, but in 1867 a terrific tem- 

 pest tore away all the branches. The trunk alone remained, a Niol)e 

 of trees. All efforts to preserve it were fruitless, and the only link of 

 life binding us to the antedeluvian world, or perhaps reaching back to 

 the third day of creation, was broken. The oldest of antiquities was 

 dead! Happily, in the exact spot on which the patriarch stood, one of 

 its seedlings grows thriftily to-day — and in this the spirit of the past 

 still lives. The imagination fails in the effort to forecast the wondrous 

 events and development which it will behold, should it inherit its pro- 

 genitor's long lease of vitality. " He who lives long sees much." 



Washington, D. C. 



OUR PUFFBALLS.*— IV. 



By C. L. Shear. 



TYLOSTOMA MEYENIANUM Klotzsch. Inner peridium depressed- 

 globose, sordid tan-color, even, glabrous, flattened at the apex, 

 2.5cm. broad, with a laciniate mouth; stipe solid, fusiform, glab- 

 rous, longitudinally sulcate-ribbed with transverse cracks toward the 

 apex, 10-13cm. long, 3.5mm. thick at the base, 12mm. thick at the apex, 

 same color as the peridium; capillitium whitish; spores globose, ses- 

 sile, uniguttulate, rusty brown. New Mexico. 



Tylostoma verrucosum Morgan. Inner peridium depressed-glo- 

 bose, rather thick, firm and rigid, about 12mm. in diameter, covered 

 with the minute brown warts and scales of the outer peridium; mouth 

 small, circular, prominent, entire; stipe 5-lOcm. long, 6mm. thick, slen- 

 der, lacerate-scaly without, white within; spores irregularly globose, 

 minutely warted, pale brown, 5-6/i. Ohio. 



Tylostoma wrightii Berkley. Inner j^eridium depressed-globose, 

 pale, ochraceous, glabrous, 2cm. broad, umbonate, the wall of the umbo 

 disappearing at maturity and forming a small circular mouth; stipe 



* Continued from T/ie Asa Gray Bulletin, 8: June, 1900. 



