Report OF THE BOTANIST. 63 
would spoil before it could be used. It is said that when the growing plant 
is cut or wounded, the wounds heal or fil! up with new tissue. Cordier states 
that the old flesh of this puft-ball is sometimes used for amadou, and that the 
spores are mixed with milk by the Finns, to make a medicine for calves 
afflicted with diarrhea. They are also used, he says, in making various 
. shades of brown paint. The capillitium and spores of this and other species 
are also said to have been used in staunching blood, and their fumes as an 
anesthetic. Fries says that there are two forms of this species, one acai 
and the other larger and globose. All the specimens that | heer seen wer 
depressed- -lobose, their vertical diameter being less than the ated 
As one correspondent expresses it, they were very much like a large round 
loaf of bread in shape and in color. In all our specimens the sterile base 
is very small in proportion to the size of the plant, so that, in the growing 
state the plant must have appeared quite sessile. Probably the smaller 
obconic form has a more distinct base. According to Fries, the species is so 
variable in size, shape, color and the character of the surface, that from these 
alone it is difficult to distinguish it There is, however, no New York 
species at present known to me with which it is likely to be confused, if the 
characters of the mature peridium, and the color of the capillitium and spores 
are observed. 
LYCOPERDON CYATHIFORME Bosc. Cur-SHAPED Purr-BALL. 
Large, 3'-10’ in diameter, nearly globose, generally furnished with a short 
more or less thick stem-like base, whitish cinereous or pinkish-brown, smooth or 
minutely floccose, sometimes with minute scattered spinules or floccose scales, 
generally cracking in areas, the upper part at length falling away in fragments 
and leaving a cup-shaped base witha lacerated margin ; capillitrum and spores 
purple-brown ; spores rough .0002’-.00025/ in diameter. Edible. 
Ground in fields and pastures. Buffalo, Clinton. Oneida, Warne. Utiea, 
Johnson. Fort Edward, Howe. Albany, Sandlake, Maryland and South 
Corinth. Autumn. 
Bose’s figure and description of this species, for a transcript of which I am 
indebted to the kindness of Prof. Farlow, are not very satisfactory. They 
were evidently derived from the basal remains of the effete plant, a mode of 
describing fungi which is scarcely to be recommended. But in this case it 
happens that there is no other known American puff-ball than the one here 
described to which, in the effete condition, his description is applicable, 
so that there is very little doubt as to the species he intended to describe. 
A translation of his description is here given. 
‘* Sessile, conical, concave at the top, the margin thin and lacerated. 
‘‘ This species, which occurs in very dry and open places in South Carolina, 
appears to have some resemblance to L. infwndibulum Willd. Its color is 
a grayish-violet, more distinct in the cavity. I have never seen it open 
naturally to disseminate its seeds. Insects which perforate it, the feet of 
quadrupeds which crush it, winds which blow it against trees supply this want.” 
The use of the word sessile in this description is very natural, if we should 
suppose as Bosc evidently did, that the sterile base was the only and normal 
condition of the plant. ‘‘ Conical’? would probably have been more accurate, 
if it had been written ‘‘ obconical’’ or ‘inversely conical.’ This species, 
occording to Dr. Berkeley, is apparently the same as L, fragile Vitt. It is 
also the L. albopurpureum of Frost’s List of Fungi in the Catalogue of 
