38 NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN. 



thickness, straight, brownish, more or less squamulose, at length 

 smooth and glabrous, grooved and hollow; gleba yellowish, 

 loose; capillitial threads long, slender, hyaline, about as thick 

 as the spores, branched; spores globose, with scattered warts, 

 yellow, 4-5 it in diameter. 



Common in sandy places by streams and in alluvial soils, 

 September-October. Especially abundant along the sandy 

 banks of the Iowa river, where hundreds of specimens may be 

 seen with each recurring autumn. Other species have been 

 reported east and west of us, but so far this is only form in 

 Iowa. 



IV. PODAXINEiE. 



Sporocarp of various shapes, stipitate, the stipe percurrent; 

 capillitium variable, often entirely wanting; the gleba also 

 variable in structure sometimes septate, cellular, sometimes not. 



The forms here included constitute a somewhat hetero- 

 geneous aggregation. In some of the species we are reminded 

 at once both of the Hymenomycetes and the Gasteromycetes. 

 The characteristic feature, however, distinguishing this family, 

 from all others, is the percurrent stipe. 



I. SECOTIUM. 



Sporocarp stipitate, at first everywhere closed, at length 

 breaking irregularly at its lower margin into segments, cen- 

 tral stipe distinct, not cellular, reaching the apex of the perid- 

 ium; the gleba cellulose, spongy, divided into chambers by 

 anastomosing, membranaceous plates; capillitum wanting, 

 spores for the most part ovate, colored, appearing in groups 

 of from two to four upon obovate, clavate or cylindrical basidia. 



1. Secotium warnei Peck. 



Peridium subglobose, ovate, or oblong, squamulose with 

 thick roundish scales, white, gray or brown, sessile or short- 

 stipitate, base at length breaking longitudinally, into 4-6 parts; 

 gleba at first white, then yellow, at length brownish-ochrace- 

 ous; spores sub-globose or ovate elliptical, 6-10 /i long. 



