8 Clavarias of the United States and Canada 



which are distinctly velvety or plush-like, and such sterile places 

 may occur in both the brittle and pliable species. Spores white 

 or yellowish or brownish, smooth or rough to spiny. Subiculum 

 none, the mycelium penetrating the substratum ; obvious rhizo- 

 morphs present in some species. 



Key to the Genera Recognized 



Plants club-shaped or cylindrical or much branched in a coral-like or broom- 

 like manner, branches or clubs not so delicate as to be hairlike on drying ; 

 texture fleshy and brittle or pliable, never very tough or leathery ; neither 

 hymenium nor growing tips tomentose.. Clavaria (p. 8) 



Plants small to large, branched, hymenium tomentose, or, if smooth, the tips 

 of the growing branches strongly tomentose ; texture pliable, very tough ; 

 spores white or brown, smooth or rough Lachno-cladiam (p. 194) 



Plants much branched from a delicate base, the branches very slender, hair- 

 like on drying Ptcrnla (p. 202) 



Plants very small, simple, club-shaped and less than 2 cm. high, the short 

 stalk relatively stout ; a sclerotium present in some species 



Pistillaria (not treated) 



Plants simple or sparsely branched, small, slender, the clubs cylindrical or 

 narrowly fusiform; the cylindrical stem smaller and (with a few ex- 

 ceptions) sharply distinct; a sclerotium often present 



Typhula (p. 200) 



Plants small, with a slender stalk supporting an irregular, swollen bladder, 

 the under side of which is covered with the hymenium.... Physalacria* 



Clavaria 



Upright, simple, or slightly to repeatedly branched, the hy- 

 menium glabrous and extending over all the plant (amphigenous) 

 except the stem when that is discrete, a variable area at the 

 base when the stem is not discrete, and also excepting in many 

 cases certain sterile and often plush-like areas in the angles of the 

 branches which may extend rather extensively in some species 



* In a recent paper Krieger, for apparently good reasons, removes this genus from 

 the Clavariaccac and places it in a primitive position in the Agaricaccae (Bull. Mary- 

 land Acad. Sci. 3: 7. 1923). He finds the cap (club) of P. inflata to be two-sided 

 (dorsi-ventral) with the upper side sterile and of a different color and texture, and he 

 considers the folds on the lower surface as more or less gill-like. Krieger changes the 

 generic name to Eoagaricus, but the rules of nomenclature do not permit such a change. 

 Two North American species of Physalacria have been described: P. inflata (Schw.) 

 Peck (Bull. T. B. C. 9: 2, figs. 1-5. 1882), a plant about 1.3-2.7 cm. high; and P. Lang- 

 loisii E. & E. (Journ. Myc. 4: 73. 1888), a minute plant only a fraction of a millimeter 

 high. We have the former in Chapel Hill (No. 7034). 



