Clavarias of the United States and Canada 143 



that has been determined as C. aurea by Bresadola, Romell, Peck, 

 Atkinson and Burnham and this may be considered sufficient 

 excuse for taking this plant as entitled to the name. It is true that 

 most or all of these students have also determined other species 

 as C. aurea and more or less consistently confused these species, 

 but in most cases all of their C. aurea except the plant we have in 

 mind can be referred to other known species. As we have notes 

 by Mr. Burnham on color in the fresh state of his plants, and as 

 they agree well in the dried state with plants from the other 

 authors mentioned, we will take our description of the species from 

 his collections. The spores of these New York plants are slightly 

 narrower than the European ones, but this difference does not 

 seem important in consideration of the close resemblance of the 

 spores in other respects. We have not found in the living state 

 a plant that we can believe identical with Burnham's, but we have 

 in Chapel Hill a form which is apparently very near, differing 

 only in the less withered and cartilaginous look of the dried plant 

 and in the reddish stains when rubbed. We are calling this var. 

 australis. From Mr. Burnham's plants and notes we draw the 

 following description (Burnham, No. 102) : 



Plant large, repeatedly and densely branched from a rather 

 small, pointed root, reaching a weight of almost a pound. Color 

 a uniform, beautiful orange except the basal parts which are white 

 where hidden by leaves and humus. Texture tender and rather 

 brittle. The dried plants are dull brown to reddish brown, 

 shrunken, the base and young tips hard and cartilaginous-looking, 

 taste rather strong and a little acid. 



Spores yellowish under a lens, subelliptic, with a bent tip, 

 minutely but distinctly rough, 4-4.8 x 11-13(jl. 



We have compared our plant with two collections of C. aurea 

 from Bresadola's herbarium, one marked "genuina," the other 

 "typica." They look exactly like Burnham's plants in the dried 

 state and the spores are the same except a little broader. One 

 lot (Sopramento, in woods, 1901) has spores 4-6x10-15(1., the 

 other (Mendola, August, 1901) has spores 4-5.5 x 11-13.5^. The 

 spores of both have the minutely rough surface and bent tip of 

 those of the American plant. Bresadola gives an inadequate de- 

 scription of a plant he took to be C. aurea (Fung. Mang., p. 110, 



