LYCOPERDAI EAE 125 



This is a rare plant in the United States and is reported by Lloyd only from Texas 

 and Catalina Island. In the rest of the world it is supposed to be of wide but erratic 

 distribution (Lloyd, Lycoperdaceae of Australia, etc., p. 21). The report by Curtis 

 that it is common in this state (Catl. Plants of North Carolina, p. 110) almost certainly 

 refers' to what we now call G. coronatus, as all the plants in his herbarium under G. 

 fornicatus are the latter species. Our single collection from this state consists of three 

 plants in fine condition that grew under cedar, but the species is reported as growing 

 under both conifers and frondose plants. It is easily distinguished from G. coronatus 

 by the absence of an outlined peristome and the entirely different surface of the inner 

 peridium . The species is really most nearly related to G. rufescens which is very similar 

 in fundamental characters, as mouth, surface of inner peridium, separating layers of 

 the outer peridium, and concave base when expanded. The spores, too, are very 

 similar. The two species, however, are not forms of the same thing, but are easily 

 distinguished by the fornicate habit, fewer and more rigid lobes, and darker and more 

 densely velvety inner peridium of G.fornicatus. Geaster marchicus is usually considered 

 a synonym of G.fornicatus, and plants so determined by Hollos in the U. S. National 

 Herbarium are certainly this species, as are also those determined by him and repre- 

 sented by No. 950 of J. Wagner's Kryptogamae exsiccatae. Spores of the latter are 

 dark, minutely warted, 3.6-4^. For other supposed synonyms, see Hollos, p. 154. 



Illustrations: Batsch. Elench. Fung., pi. 29, fig. 168. 

 Corda. Icon. Fung. 5: pi. 4, fig. 43. 

 Destree. 1. c, pi. 6, fig. B. 

 Hollos. 1. c, pi. 8, figs. 9-18; pi. 29, fig. 26. 

 Lloyd. Myc. Works, pi. 96, figs. 1-3 (fig. 2 was first published as G. fenestrates in Myc. Notes, 



p. 70, fig. 33). 

 Massee. Brit. Fungi and Lichens, pi. 35, fig. 5. 

 Petri. 1. c, fig. 44, 2. 

 Rea. 1. c, pi. 17. 

 Smith. 1. c, pi. IS, fig. 2. 

 Sowerby. Eng. Fungi 2 : pi. 198. 



Smith's Island. In a dense bed of cedar twigs under a cedar in sandy soil, December 29, 1921. Couch 

 and Grant, colls. (U. N. C. Herb.). 



Geaster fimbriatus Fr. 

 G. tunicalus Vitt. 



Plates 70 and 115 



Plants small, in our collections up to 3 cm. wide when freshly expanded; inner 

 peridium about 9-14 mm. thick when fresh, subglabrous to minutely dotted, pale or 

 dark brown, sessile in and surrounded by the concave lower half of the outer peridium; 

 mouth on a more or less elevated, concolorous or paler cone, but without a definitely 

 outlined area around it, the margin fibrous-flocculent and at times lacerate, not sulcate. 

 Outer peridium splitting about half way down into 5-8 lobes which when freshly ex- 

 panded are strongly recurved around the margin of the bowl-shaped base, usually 

 remaining recurved in the dry state, not hygroscopic. Mycelial layer very thin with 

 wefted surface, pale tan or buff to soaked ochraceous when fresh, tending to peel away 

 in part from the rays but as a rule not nearly so much so as in G. velulinus.^ Fleshy 

 layer pallid (nearly white to pale smoky tan; not pinkish) and about 2 mm. thick when 

 fresh, drying down to an extremely thin, smooth or finely cracked up, brown or ochra- 



