LYCOPERDACEAE 119 



wood colored on the outside, with spores 4;u thick, but the types at Kew from Trinity 

 Bay, Australia, are essentially like our plants from Jamaica. There are two open 

 plants and several more or less crushed buttons. The best specimen shows a spore sac 

 about 7 mm. thick, dark brown; peristome not outlined by a groove or ridge but paler 

 and fibrous. Surface of buttons minutely spongy, of older plants nearly glabrous. 

 Largest button 1.1 cm. thick. Subiculum white, membranous. Spores spherical, 

 practically smooth, some finely dotted, 3-3. S/u. 



Lycopcrdon f-usio B. & C. is apparently a Geastcr. The co-types in the Curtis 

 Herbarium, No. 253 (Cuba), are all buttons, but they look just like another collection 

 so labelled, also from Cuba (Wright) , in which the plants are open. These last are small 

 Geasters looking very much like G. subhiilosiis, with pale, smooth surface, and con- 

 spicuous mycelium. The spores, however, are not those of any member of this group, 

 but are 3.8-4.Sm thick, with distinct, blunt warts. 



Illustrations: Lloyd. As cited above. 



Jamaica. Hope. Earle, coll. (N. Y. Eot. Gard. Herb., No. 184). 



Geaster mammosus Fr. 



G. cor all inns (Batsch) Hollos 

 G. lugubris Kalch. 

 G. argentcus Cooke 



Plates 115 and 116 



Button bulb-shaped with a distinct tapering point about 3^1 mm. long when dry, 

 covered all over with a finely felted, thin, soft, buffy yellow coat which is usually quite 

 clean of dirt except at the base and apparently exposed. Mycelium basal; outer scurf 

 wearing off gradually and exposing the glabrous shining copper brown or darker, fibrous 

 layer of the rays, which are about 8-12 in number, of unequal width and strongly hy- 

 groscopic; fleshy layer thick, adnate, smooth, at first gray-brown then darker brown to 

 blackish. Inner peridium 5-15 mm. thick, subglobose to compressed, very finely 

 puberulent, sessile, grayish to brown then darker; peristome distinctly outlined by a 

 depressed border, plane, silky-strigose, the mouth elevated and papillose-fimbriated. 

 Expanded plants up to 5.5 cm. broad. 



Spores (of a Canada plant) spherical, minutely warted, 3-3.7 n- 



Easily denned in the hygroscopic section by the clearly outlined silky-fibrous, 

 plane and non-sulcate peristome. The above description was mostly drawn from a 

 fine collection from Canada, containing one button and plants of various ages and sizes 

 (N. Y. Bot. Gard. Herb., no data except Canada). 



Plants in the Lloyd Herbarium from Paris (L. Rolland) are like American speci- 

 mens, with a spongy, yellow, nearly clean superficial layer peeling off in flakes; the mouth 

 distinct. Plants in the same herbarium from Tucuman, Argentina (Leon Castillon, 

 coll.), are like the United States and European plants except that the outer layer when 

 present is covered with sandy earth. 



Geaster argentens Cooke (Grevillea 17: 75. 1889) is represented at Kew by three 

 sets on the same sheet, all from Fort Carlton, Saskatchewan (one lot not named). The 

 plants of the upper lot with pasted label giving fullest data, we take as the types. The 

 plants have the appearance of G. mammosus w-ith outer superficial layer weathered off, 



