NIDULARIACEAE 177 



Cyathus Poeppigii Tulasne 



Plate 121 



Cups 6-8 mm. high, goblet-shaped, the mouth up to 6 mm. wide, shrinking and 

 crumpled when dry, dark brown (about sepia), felted and fibrous to shaggy; inner sur- 

 face slate gray, shining, both surfaces strongly and closely striate-fluted in the upper 

 half. Peridioles 1.6-2 mm. wide, flat, black, dull or a little shining, the funiculi 

 conspicuous. 



Spores short-elliptic, 11-20.3 x 22-4%. 



This species is easily distinguished from others of its group by its large spores and 

 striated outer as well as inner surface. It is new to the United States, being known 

 heretofore only from northern South America and the West Indies. There is at the 

 New York Botanical Garden a collection of this marked "in bamboo pots" (Stevenson, 

 coll.) with no other locality data given, but probably from the tropics. The spores are 

 18-37 x 22-55*1. 



Illustrations: Lloyd. Myc. Works, pi. 105, figs. 1-5. 



Tulasne. Ann. Sci. Nat., 3rd ser., 1: pi. 4, figs. 23-25; pi. 5, figs. 3-4. 1844. 

 White. Bull. Torr. Bot. Club 29: pi. 14, figs. 1-4. 1902. 



Florida. Gainesville. On earth in a yard, July 1924. Couch, coll. (U. N. C. Herb., No. 7282). 

 St. Croix. A. E. Ricksecker, coll. (N. Y. B. G. Herb.). 



Cyathus stercoreus (Schw.) De Toni 

 Nidularia stercorea Schw. 



Plates 100 and 121 



Plants goblet-shaped, about 5-10 mm. high in our collections, almost sessile or 

 with a short stalk, gregarious in large numbers and usually crowded so that a group of 

 old plants looks very much like a wasp's nest; growing usually on manure or on earth 

 where manure has been spread. The mycelium is rufous as in all other species we have 

 seen except in C. Lesueurii, and it sometimes forms an obvious pad at the base of the 

 cup. Outer surface tawny when young, then tan to buff or gray-brown, covered with 

 thick, matted, woolly hairs, which with age become worn off, leaving the cups almost 

 smooth; inner surface smooth, even (not striate), dark grayish brown to nearly black 

 in age. On expanding above from the rounded, strigose stage of youth, the delicate 

 epiphragm is exposed, only to break and disappear in a short time; mouth smooth, not 

 fimbriate (the surface hairs that project above it soon after opening do not constitute a 

 fimbriate mouth). Peridioles nearly black, without a tunica, 1.5-2.5 mm. in diameter, 

 with a thick, hard wall, usually attached to the cup by funiculi, although often we 

 find some of the upper peridioles in the cups which show no signs of a funiculus and 

 w r hich drop out of the cup when it is inverted (as noticed by Lloyd). Outer removable 

 layer (tunica?) and denser layer below about 90-130^ thick; sclerotic layer about 37/* 

 thick around the edge of the peridiole, about 165yu thick on the sides near the center. 



Spores (of No. 39) almost hyaline, subglobose to oval, thick-walled, varying greatly 

 in size, 18-30 x 22-35/j. Basidia (of No. 5916) club-shaped, distinctly swollen at the 

 distal end, 9-12.5 x 28^4ju, bearing 4-8 sessile spores, only 2 or 3 of which mature. 

 The spores may be attached to any part of the basidium, but are usually borne in a 

 circle near the end. After the spores are formed the basidia collapse, finally leaving 

 long threads among the spores, the layer just beneath the hymenium becoming sclerotic. 



Not rare and often in large colonies on manured ground, dry manure, and much 

 more rarely on decidedly rotten wood. In the large spores, the species approaches 



