1922] 



BURT — THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES OF CLAVARIA 31 



its greater fragility, whiter color, softer texture and smaller 

 spores. In the dried specimens the stems and branches are much 

 more slender and of a purer white color than in C. densa." 



The type specimen is now cream color; spores white in the 

 mass, hyaline under the microscope, minutely rough under a dry 

 objective, minutely spinulose viewed with immersion objective, 

 subglobose, 3^-4^X3-3^ M- This species may be most surely 

 separated from C. Kunzei by the rough spores ; recent gatherings 

 from the type locality, now in Mo. Bot. Gard. Herb, and Burt 

 Herb., show furthermore that the outer surface of a cluster of 

 the fructifications is composed of more numerous and finer ulti- 

 mate branchlets than in C. Kunzei. 



40. C. cristata Holmskiold ex Fries, Syst. Myc. 1: 473. 1821; 

 Sverig. Atl. Svamp. 53. pi 92. /. 1. 1861; Hym. Eur. 668. 1874; 

 Persoon, Syn. Fung. 591. 1801; Myc. Eur. 1: 166. 1822; Berk- 

 eley, Outl. Brit. Fung. 280. 1860 ; Sacc. Sy 11. Fung. 6 : 695. 1888 ; 

 Morgan, Cincinnati Soc. Nat. Hist. Jour. 11: 87. 1888; Peck, 

 N. Y. State Mus. Rept. 48: 211. pi. 39. j. 8-12. 1896; Cotton & 

 Wakefield, Brit. Myc. Soc. Trans. 6: 176. 1919. Plate 6, fig. 40. 



Ramaria cristata Holmskiold, Fungi Dan. 92. pi. 23. 1799. 



Illustrations: Holmskiold, Fries, Peck, loc. cit.; Persoon, 

 Comment. Clav. pi. 2. /. 4; Hard, Mushrooms, text j.393. 



Fructifications 3-8 cm. high, gregarious, fragile, pure white, 

 pinkish white or with a tinge of mouse-gray; smell none, taste 

 distinct; flesh white; stem short, slender or stout; branches nu- 

 merous, irregular, flattened upwards, and divided at the tips 

 into sharp-pointed branchlets, axils rounded; basidia with 2 

 sterigmata; spores hyaline, even, apiculate, 9-12x6-8 n (average 

 9X7, or 7-8 m). 



On ground in woods. Very common. 



Cotton and Wakefield add further: "We have retained this 

 species in the sense in which it is usually understood, but not 

 without some misgivings. It is obviously nearly allied to C. 

 cinerea, and small crested forms of the latter are difficult to 

 distinguish from certain forms of C. cristata. It is noteworthy 

 also that C. cristata usually occurs in more shaded spots, and 

 frequently covered with leaves or screened by logs of wood." 



41. C. mutans Burt, n. sp. Plate 6, fig. 41. 



Type: in N. Y. State Mus. Herb, under the name C. 

 Krombholzii. 



