106 Journal of Mycology [Vol. 18 



that fits closely to the base of the stipe. This membrance like that 

 of Phallus ra-venelii is not composed of pseudoparenchyma, but 

 in every other respect it is a true veil. It seems to me that on 

 the believers in the genus Dictyophora falls the burden of proving 

 that the veils of those plants that they place under this genus 

 are not homologous to this veil in Phallus impudicus. 



That those species with a persistent, well developed, meshed 

 pseudoparenchymatous veil, like Phallus duplicatus, deserve spe- 

 cial rank seems not proven — for intergrading forms of more 

 or less persistent and well defined veils are present in many 

 species of Phallus ; furthermore, the presence of a well defined 

 veil in Phallus impudicus, the original type of the Phallus genus, 

 would make this genus have as one of its characters a veil and 

 the genus Dictyophora would now be identical in all respects to 

 Phallus and wiuld therefore be reduced to synonomy. 



The fact that the earlier writers did not mention this veil on 

 Phallus impudicus is no proof that it did not exist, and when 

 found would become as much a character of the genus as if it had 

 been described at first. I have in my collection three species 

 of Phalloids, Phallus impudicus. Phallus rubicuiidus, and Phal- 

 lus aurantiacus ( ?) — the last from Hawaii, on which even 

 when dry the veils show plainly, as much so as on D. ravenelii 

 I have further a specimen of D. dupUcata from New York that 

 shows two veils, one the usual meshed veil beneath the cap, the 

 other membraneous and in patches on the stipe just as in the 

 other Phalli. Now this second veil may be one of two things, 

 either a part of a true second veil that was formed beneath the 

 usual veil, or, what is more probable, it is the lower part of the 

 usual veil left clinging to the stipe. That such is the character 

 of the lower part of the veil of D. duplicata. see Burt in the Phal- 

 loideae of the United States, II. Systematic Account, pp. 387 and 



388- 



The veils in my specimens were especially pronounced in 



plants that were slow in opening both in Phallus impudicus and 

 Phallus rubicundus. Those eggs that had been some three or four 

 weeks in the "incubator" usually had thicker and more permanent 

 veils than those that opened two or three days after collecting, 

 while those found in the open fields had veils well developed if 

 eggs opened during rainy weather. Also those plants that opened 

 after cold weather came had veils. Specimens of Pltallus rubi- 

 cundus collected at Austin, Texas, during April, May and June, 

 have no sign of a veil of any kind, not even the alcoholic ma- 

 terial (of which I have some ten to fifteen specimens) shows 

 any trace of a veil. Considering these facts it would seem that 

 this layer of tissue that sometimes tears loos and forms a veil 

 and sometimes does not, acts as an organ of nutrition in which is 

 stored, or through which passes, food to be used bv the stipe and 

 cap; if this be the case then in warm damp weather the matur- 



