THE DISCOMYCETES OF EASTERN IOWA. 263 



The light colored hairs with which the exterior of these 

 plants is clothed distinguish this genus from the genus Lack- 

 nea in which the hairs are dark colored. They are dis- 

 tinguished from the genus Sacroscyplia which also has light 

 colored hairs, by the small sessile plants. Two plants were 

 grown in the laboratory from soil on which the plants were 

 found in the field. The hymenium is almost plane but gen- 

 erally surrounded by a delicate fringe. The asci often show 

 only four or six spores. Spores are often surrounded by a 

 gelatinous substance. 



Genus III— S ARCOSPH^RA Auersw. 



Receptacle at first closed, immersed in the ground, opening 

 at the summit and gradually spreading, often splitting at the 

 margin, when mature only partly immersed. Externally 

 clothed with soft, flexuose, septate, brown hair, longer near 

 the base, or nearly smooth. Asci 8-spored; sporidia elliptical, 

 hyaline, smooth, i-guttulate. Paraphyses colorless clavate. 



The one species described here was collected in the summer 

 on sandy soil on the bank of a small lake in Washington park, 

 Chicago. The plants were partly immersed in the sand and 

 constricted at the mouth. Mature specimens were only slightly 

 split at the margin. 



Sarcosphaera anenicola (Lev.) Lindau. 

 Plate VII, fig. n. 



L887 Lachnea arenicola Phillips, Brit. Disc. p. 210. 



1889 Lachnea arenicola Saccardo, Sylloge.Fung. , VIII, p. 172. 



1897 Sarcosphaera arenicola Engler Prantl, Pflan. Famil. , I, i, p. 1*1 , fig. 1 47. 



Cups sessile, subterranean, subglobose, then cup-shaped, de- 

 pressed, waxy, about one inch in diameter, clothed, especially 

 near the base with long, brown, flexuose hairs encrusted with 

 sand; mouth constricted, becoming split; hymenium white or 

 brownish; asci cylindrical; sporidia 8, broadly elliptic, 1- 

 guttulate, smooth 20 to 25 by 12 to 14 microns; paraphyses cla- 

 vate at the apices. 



Habitat — In sandy soil on the bank of a small lake in 

 Washington park, Chicago. 



