HYMEN'OGASTRACEAE 49 



next appear in the top of the peridium and collapse begins as the jelly is slowly dissolved 

 out by the rains. Even when the plant is half rotted off above and shrunken like a 

 dried plum, the structure of the gleba is still obvious below and all the plant remains 

 tough and elastic. Weeks and probably months are required to complete the dis- 

 organization. 



Reported from North and South Carolina, Florida and Alabama. 



Though Ravenel's plant was described as white by Berkeley (Grevillea 2: 33. 

 1873, as a var. of //. Stephensii) we have no doubt that our plant is the same. We have 

 compared a collection labelled Octaviania Ravenelii from Alabama by Earle (N. Y. Bot. 

 Gard.), who notes that the color was "uniform terra cotta red, after exposure the tops 

 bleach to a dirty white." He also notes that the plants were growing singly on the 

 ground in a pasture and were usually 1-2 cm. broad (up to 3 x 4 cm.). Our plants are 

 the same as these in all characters, including the spores which we find to be in Earle's 

 plants 11— 14/u, rarely up to 16.6/i, including the tubercles. Hydnangium Stephensii 

 Berk, and Br. (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 13: 352. 1844) was transferred to Octaviania 

 by Tulasne, but the characters that distinguish these two genera are very obscure. 

 (See note under the genus.) 



The American plant is closely related to H. Stephensii, but the spores easily sep- 

 arate the two species. The spores of H. Stephensii are short-elliptic and with slender, 

 sharper spines and are not reticulated. Our fig. 7 on pi. 110 is drawn from a slide, 

 which was generously prepared for us by Miss Wakefield from the type atKew. Tulasne 

 and Massee draw the spores as elliptic, but with the spines more prominent than they 

 appear to us. Quelet (Champ. Jura et Vosges, pt. 3, p. 18, pi. 1, fig. 9) shows the spore 

 as subspherical (13/u thick) with small spines. It is interesting that he gives the color 

 of the plant as whitish, the very character that made Berkeley describe the American 

 plant as a variety of his "dark rufous" H. Stephensii. This suggests a similar fading 

 in age. Corda shows the spores of 0. Stephensii as quite spherical and with short, 

 sharp spines, not reticulated (6: pi. 7, fig. 67). Patouillard's drawing of spores (Bull. 

 Soc. Myc. France 26: 201, fig. 1. 1910) of what he calls a form of Stephensii {Hyd- 

 nangium galathejum) are as he notes just like those of the type of Stephensii. He 

 further notes that in the type as in the form the basidium has but one sterigma. 

 This makes a further distinction between Octaviania Ravenelii and 0. Stephetisii. 

 In the fresh state a section of our plant showed a narrow, plug-like sterile base 

 about 1-2 mm. thick. From this base two or three lines (in section) radiated and 

 were plainly visible for about half way to the surface. When cut the milk exuded 

 much more abundantly along these lines and from the sterile base. There is no 

 sign of splitting in the tramal plates. In his original description of H. Stephensii, 

 Berkeley does not describe the juice as turning red then yellowish on exposure 

 as stated by Rea (British Basidiomycetae, p. 28) but says, "substance when cut and 

 exposed to the air soon acquiring a red tinge, which is not however permanent and in 

 young specimens vanishes almost entirely in drying, in which state the hymenium is 

 cream colored." This is exactly the color change in our plants. 



Since writing the above we have seen notes on this species in the fresh condition 

 by Prof. Povah of Alabama (Lloyd Myc. Notes, p. 1140. 1922). His observations 

 are in close agreement with ours in regard to milk and color changes. The odor he 

 describes as "suggesting to some strawberries, to another the odor of a freshly dug 



