THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 33 



the purple is as pronounced as ever, while the white is 

 clear and the contrast sharp. Some of the purple flowers 

 are fertile every year and form seed pods. Could it be 

 that the pollen from the pear tree has effected this change ? 

 If so, why do the cleistogamous blossoms not keep the line 

 true 1—Mrs. Flora Lewis Marble. [It is positively certain 

 that the pollen from the pear tree has had no effect upon 

 the violets. Nor could anything except the soil or climate 

 change the flowers of the orioinal plants. Seedlings from 

 these plants, however, might possibly have sprung from 

 seeds produced from blossoms pollinated by some white 

 lowered violet. Otherwise we would be inclined to think 

 that the blue violets came of a strain that numbered white 

 species in its familv line and in this case had "taken 

 back."— Ed.] 



Identifying Fungi. — Nearly ten thousand species of 

 fungi have been reported from America. A large number 

 of these belong to the rusts, blights, smuts, mildews, 

 moulds, etc., but the higher fungi, to which belong the 

 mushrooms, puff-balls, earth-stars, bracket fungi and 

 others, comprise at least three thousand species. These 

 latter have the greatest interest for the nature lover since 

 most of them are of strange form or attractive color and 

 many are edible. Edible and poisonous species, however, 

 are often as nearly alike as brothers and the necessity for 

 exact identification is apparent. The beginner finds very 

 difficult the task of separating the species of the Agarica- 

 ce£E — mushrooms or toadstools — which in America num- 

 ber nearh' fifteen hundred, but v^hile it may be years 

 before he can become familiar with the Agarics of his 

 localitv, no such length of time need elapse before he is 

 able to refer the species of the higher fungi to their proper 

 groups. Thus the Agaricaceai form but one family of the 

 seven composing the Agaricales. Two of these families 

 are not conspicuous, but of the others the Agaricaceae are 

 readily known by the gills on the under side of the cap, 

 upon which the spores are borne. The Clavariaceas are 

 the white, tawn^-- and pink coral-like masses often fre- 



