HYSTERANGIACEAE 23 



\'ittadini. Monog. Tuberac, pi. 3, fig. 6. 



Klotzch in Dictr. Fl. Boruss. (Fl. Konigr. Prcuss.) 7: pi. 764. 



New York. Washington Co., Hudson Falls. Burnham, coll. 



GYMNOMYCES Massee & Rodw. 



Fruit body subglobose to irregular, peridium delicate or entirely wanting. Gleba 

 fleshy, rather pale; cavities box-like to labyrinthiform; septa not scissile, composed of 

 delicate hyphae or bladdery cells. Basidia forming a distinct hymenium, lining the 

 empty cavities, sterigmata 2—4, Spores hyaline to pallid brown, globose, echinulate 

 to rugose-reticulate. 



Three species have so far been described, one of which is from the United States 

 (California), and we are adding a fourth from Chapel Hill. The genus is distinguished 

 from Gaulieria by the rough, spiny, spherical spores; from Arcangeliella, by the absence 

 of milk; and from Macowanites by the absence of a stalk. 



Our Chapel Hill plant described below is clearly marked and is very peculiar in the 

 friable texture of the tramal plates. 



Literature 



Zeller and Dodge. Arcangeliella, Gymnomyces, and Macowanites in North America. Ann. Mo. 

 Bot. Gard. 6: 49, text figs. 1-3. 1919. 



Gymnomyces vesiculosus n. sp. 



Plates 16, 17 and 105 



Fruiting body subspherical, about one cm. thick when fresh, drying to about half 

 size, the base attached by a few basal fibrils which spring from a narrow depression; 

 light buff yellow (about Naples yellow) ; odorless. Peridium nearly absent at maturity, 

 some of the chambers being exposed, others separated from the air only by the tramal 

 plates and visible as small depressions, the whole giving the surface a spongy look; 

 gleba pallid gray brown (pale earthy buff), firm, but pliable, not tough or elastic, about 

 like a potato; chambers rather large and box-like, empty, about 0.4-0.8 mm., walls 

 thick, about 0.17-0.2 mm. including the hymenial layers which are about 30,u thick; 

 structure of the walls remarkable, composed of large bladdery cells about 20-40/i thick 

 except for a very thin layer under the hymenium where the cells are small. Peridium, 

 where present, composed of a very thin layer of delicate, loosely woven, yellowish 

 threads. A sterile base and radiating plates are entirely lacking. 



Spores color of the gleba under a lens, darker under the microscope, spherical, 

 7.5-10/u thick including the strong, blunt spines, often stuck together in groups of 4. 

 Basidia short and thick, the 4 sterigmata nearly half as long as the spore diameter. 



We take the name from the peculiar cells of the tramal plates, which are different 

 from those of any other Gasteromycete we have seen. They remind one of the flesh 

 of a Russida, and the friable texture of the plant is a reflection of this structure. The 

 texture is not at all tough or elastic or subgelatinous. 



Gaulieria Trabuti from California (N. Y. Bot. Gard. Herb.; Parks, coll., and ap- 

 parently correctly determined) has vesiculose cells just beneath the hymenium, but the 

 central region of the trama is composed of filamentous threads as in most species and the 

 cavities are much more tortuous. The spores are entirely different, having the surface 

 characteristic of Gaulieria, longitudinally ridged, 9-11 x 11.5-20ju. 



7470. Found exposed on soil in frondose woods after a hard rain had washed away the humus, August 

 4, 1924. 



