



1 \ i OPERDACEAE 143 



Diplocystis Wrightii B. & C. 



Plates 80 and 117 



Fruit bodies small, crowded together in large numbers on a common, firmly leathery 

 stroma about 1-2 mm. thick which superficially covers the substratum. Individual 

 fruit bodies touching each other or here and there as much as 4 mm. apart; about 6-10 

 mm. thick, flattened above; at maturity the flattened top becoming pale and cracking 

 into pieces which fall away, leaving the firm, deep brown, leathery sides to form a cup 

 only slightly lower than the puffball within. Inner peridium paler brown, thin, pliable, 

 opening by a small apical pore, collapsing gradually as the spores escape and finally 

 settling into the bottom of the cup. 



Spores yellowish brown under the microscope, spherical, minutely warted, 4-5. 5m, 

 sometimes with a small mucro visible. Capillitium very scarce, pale, threads long or 

 fragmented, branching, thick-walled with lumen almost closed, usually surrounded by 

 remnants of collapsed threads, about 4.8-1 1/u thick, with a rough wall. 



The type is from Cuba and it is also known from the Bahamas (Inagua, Andros, 

 Long Island) and Guadaloupe. 



As Lloyd mentions, the mouth is not protruding as shown in Fischer's figure. Our 

 specimens, while ample, do not show stages young enough to determine the internal 

 structure in youth, but the arrangement of the capillitium in a mount suggests that there 

 were chambers. We therefore place the genus provisionally in the Lycoperdaceae. 



Illustrations: Fischer. Englerand Prantl, Pflanzenfamilien l l : 323, fig. 167 D. 

 Lloyd. Myc. Works, pi. 15. 



Bahamas. On bare earth on 'hillside, Clarence Harbor, Long Island. Coker, coll. (U. N. C. Herb.). 



Broomeia. The North American (Albany) record for this little known genus, as 

 given in Saccardo, is a mistake, as noted by Lloyd, the plant really being found in the 

 district of Albany at the Cape of Good Hope (Leveille; Ann. Sci. Nat., 3rd ser., 9: 

 129. 1848). This leaves the type species, B. congregala, known only from South 

 Africa. Of the other two described species, B. gnadalupensis, is almost certainly 

 Diplocystis Wrightii. For discussion and reference to figures of Broomeia see Lloyd, 

 Myc. Notes, p. 917. The genus Broomeia is distinguished from Diplocystis by a uni- 

 versal volva covering a crowded group of small peridia which are seated on a more or 

 less elevated, common base. 



