62 THIRT)-SECOND RkEPORT ON THE STATE MUSEUM. 
Section I. Bvvistvides. Peridinm rupturing irregularly, the upper part 
Salling away in fragments. Columella none. 
In the species of this section the peridium is apt to crack im areas, and at 
maturity it breaks up in irregular fragments and falls away. The capillitium 
and spores are also soon dispersed, <o that there remains only the sterile base 
which is sometimes margined by the lacerated, but more permanent basal 
part of the peridium. In this case the remains are somewhat cup-shaped. 
The bark or warts are usually of a soft floccose character, but sometimes not 
conspicuously developed. 
~  Lycoperpon GiganteuM Batsch. Giant PUFF-BALL. 
Very large, 10-20 in diameter, obconic or depressed-globose, nearly or 
quite sessile, white or whitish, becoming discolored by age, smooth or slightly 
roughened by weak spinose or minute floctose warts, sometimes cracking in 
areas ; capillitium and spores yellowish green to dingy- -olive ; spores smooth, 
.00016 in diameter. Edible. 
Ground in fields, pastures and grassy places. Buffalo, Clinton. Oneida, 
Warne. North Galway, Tef?. Rensselaerville, Duolittle. Catskill Moun- 
tains, Paine. Late summer and autumn. 
This is the largest puff-ball known in this country, and is therefore very appro- 
priately named the Giant puff-ball. The species, according to Fries, has also 
received other names, such as J. marimom Scheeff, the largest puff-ball; Z. 
Bovista L., the Bovista-like puff-ball; 4. ru/gare Vaill, the Common puff- 
ball, and L. proteus Sow, the Protean puff-ball. Its dimensions are usually 
within the limits given in the description, but sometimes it grows much 
larger. Its great size frequently brings it into notice, and makes it the sub- 
ject of short newspaper articles. The following have recently fallen under 
the ob-ervation of the writer, and are introduced here because they indicate 
the size sometimes attained by this puff-ball: ‘In a low moist portion of 
the Gordon Park there grew this fall Ae of the largest puff-balls (Lycoperdon 
giganicum) ever seen. “It measured a little over eight feet in circumference, | 
and weighed forty-seven pounds. It looked at a distance like some large 
boulder. * * A specimen of the above dimensions would be a meal for 
a good large family. In fact, I think it sufficient to appease the appetites of 
some of the largest European fungus cinbs.”—Country Gentleman. “ There 
was an enormous puff-ball in a bank near the house of the writer this sum- 
mer, It was eighteen and a half inches in its greatest diameter, and four feet 
four inches in circumference. These puff-balls have come up in the same 
place for many years past, and always of a large size, but never before so 
Jarge as the above.”—Gevil/ea. ‘ Among noteworthy specimens seen at 
the recent Edinburgh Fungus Show, was * * a puff-ball (Lycoperdon 
giganteum) fifty- four inches in circumference and weighing twenty pounds,” 
—Botanical Gazette. Schweinitz affirms that he found in a certain meadow 
specimens of this puff-ball three feet in diameter. The largest New York 
specimen that I have seen is the one contributed by Mr. Warne. It measures 
fifteen inches in diameter in its dried state. It was considerably larger 
in its fresh state. The specimen from Rensselaerville is fourteen inches 1 in 
diameter in the dried state. One writer advises that when one of these large 
puff-balls occurs at a convenient distance from the house, it should not be 
removed from its place of growth, but that a sufficient quantity be cut from 
it fora meal. The next day it may be visited again and enough more be 
taken for another meal. In this way it may supply a small family for a 
week ; but if all were taken up and carried to the house at once. some of it 
