4<D NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN. 



TABLE OF GENERA OF THE LYCOPERDINE^E. 



A. Peridium sessile, base more or less thickened. 



i. Peridium opening irregularly by the breaking up of its walls. . 



. . . I. Calvatia. 



2. Peridium opening by a definite apical mouth. 



a. Threads of the capillitium long, delicate, simple or rarely branched. 

 II. Lycoperdon 



b. Threads of the capillitium short, several times dichotomously 

 branched V. Bovistella. 



B. Peridium sessile, base not thickened nor stem like. 

 Peridium plainly double. 



a. Peridia stellately reflexed. 



* Inner peridium stellately reflexed. . VI. Mycenastrum. 

 ** Outer peridium stellately reflexed. . . VII. Geaster. 



b. Peridia not stellately reflexed. 



* The dehiscence basal. ..... IV. Catastoma. 



** Dehiscence apical, definite or irregular; capillitium abundant 



dichotomously branched. ..... III. Bovista. 



I. CALVATIA {Fries) Morgan. 



Sporocarp large, globose and sessile or turbinate with a 

 well developed stem-like base, terrestrial, attached to the 

 ground by mycelial strands often thick and cord-like; peridia 

 distinct, the outer thin smooth or granular often soon dissi- 

 pated, the inner thick but fragile, after maturity breaking up 

 into fragments from above downwards and so disappearing; 

 the gleba, capillitium and spores, dense, persistent finally dissi- 

 pated by the wind, the columella in some cases long remain- 

 ing, definitely limited above; capillitial threads long, slender, 

 abundantly branched and intricately interwoven; spores glo- 

 bose, minute. 



This genus as now defined includes the largest puff-balls 

 of the order. Specimens are often solitary, at most gregarious. 



The genus founded by Fries to receive the Bovista cranii- 

 formis of Schweinitz, has no features which are not equally 

 characteristic of several other species heretofore assigned 

 usually to the genus Lycof>erdon. We accordingly follow 

 Morgan in abstracting from the old genus Lycoperdon all the 

 the species opening by a deciduous inner peridium. 



