LY( OPERDACEAE 65 



Our description is from the Canadian plants listed below. A plant from Colorado 

 is quite similar to these, except that the areolations above are very pronounced, so that 

 the tendency is for each areolation to break away separately, bringing its part of the 

 inner peridium with it. The smooth form mentioned above is represented by plants 

 from Kansas and Nebraska entered below. The peridium is quite smooth, tan to 

 brownish tan; all forms are otherwise the same. 



Illinois. Urbana. McDougall, coll. (U. N. C. Herb.). Spores minutely waited, 3.5-4.5ju. 

 Kansas. Rooks Co. On open prairie. Bartholomew, coll. (U. N. C. Herb.). 



Also a Kansas plant from Cragin, No. 522. (N. Y. B. G. Herb, and U. N. C. Herb.) Spores 



minutely rough, 4.5-5.8/1. 

 Nebraska. Long Pine. Bates, coll. No. 486. (N. Y. B. G. Herb, and U. N. C. Herb.) Spores 



smooth with a mucro, 4-5.5/1. Capillitium threads sinuous, 2-4/i thick. 

 Colorado. Bethel, coll. (N. Y. B. G. Herb., as C. pachyderma, and U. N. C. Herb.). Spores purple, 



minutely warted, 4.5-6/1 thick. Capillitium threads about 5m thick, in fragments with ends 



usually closed. 

 Wyoming. Pitchfork. Davis, coll. (U. N. C. Herb, from N. Y. B. G. Herb., labelled C. lilacina var. 



occidentalis). Spores nearly smooth, 4-5.5/1, rarely up to 7/x, no pedicel. 

 Canada. London. Deamess, No. 4783 Font. (Dearness Herb, and U. N. C. Herb.) Also another 



collection by Dearness from London. (N. Y. B. G. Herb, and U. N. C. Herb.) Spores nearly 



smooth, 3.7-4.5/1 thick. 



Calvatia elata (Massee) Morgan 



Plates 26, 38 and 112 



Plants small for this genus, with a distinct, usually long, subcylindrical, often 

 pitted stalk up to 4 cm. thick and 8.5 cm. long (rarely longer) and a subglobose head 

 about 3-6 cm. thick; color when mature pale brown to leather color; cortex only a very 

 thin granular or powdery, persistent layer that is almost absent on the stalk below; 

 inner peridium thin and at maturity very fragile, soon cracking up into fragments and 

 falling away or adhering for awhile to the capillitium. Gleba brown; the subgleba of 

 the stalk with distinct empty chambers of fair size. 



Spores (of plant from Litchfield, Conn.) spherical, very minutely warted, short- 

 pedicellate, 3.5-4.4/z. Capillitium threads much fragmented, moderately pitted, up 

 to 5m thick. 



The species was described by Massee as Lycoperdon datum from New England 

 plants in the Berkeley Herbarium, where it was included as L. saccatum. We have 

 seen a good example of C. saccata from England (N. Y. Bot. Garden, from Cooke) 

 and find that the spores are larger and rougher than in our C. elata (distinctly warted, 

 4.5-5.5/0, thus confirming Morgan's statement to that effect. As in so many other 

 cases, these differences are hardly more than in regional forms of the same species. 

 Hollos considers C. elata a variety of C. saccata. 



The two Canadian plants entered below are like each other in every particular 

 except that the capillitium in one plant was unbranched, in the other freely branched. 

 In both plants the capillitium was less fragmented than in other specimens we have 

 seen. One of the plants had previously been sent to Lloyd and determined by him 

 as C. saccala. 



This species is in the cranijormis group, and seems nearest that species. It 

 differs in smaller size, a proportionately longer stem, darker color of mature gleba, 

 and in larger and minutely roughened spores. It seems also near L. muscorum and in 

 certain respects resembles L. gemmation. See these species for further discussion. 



