5fi4 



MUSHROOMS, EDIBLE AND OTHERWISE 



generally shaggy with fragments of leaves or grass, sometimes partly or entirely 

 separating. Fleshy layer closely attached, very light in color, usually smooth on 

 the limb of the exoperidium but cracked on the segments. Pedicel short but 



distinct. The inner 

 peridium ovoid-, one- 

 fourth to one-half 

 inch in diameter ; 

 white to pale-brown, 

 sometimes almost 

 black. Mouth lifted 

 on a slight cone, lip 

 bordered with a 

 hair-like fringe ; 

 columella slender, as 

 are also the threads. 

 Spores brown , 

 ^^m |L JS** xJ jn lwfcfc ^!^ globe-shaped, and 



minutely warted. 

 Found in the sum- 

 mer and early fall 



Nature seems to 

 give it the power to 

 lift up the spore- 

 bearing body, the 

 better to eject its 



spores to the wind. It is very frequently found in pastures all over the state. I 

 have found it in many localities about Chillicothe. It is called "minimus" because 

 it is the smallest Earth-star. 



Figure 482. Geaster minimus. 



Photo by C. G. Lloyd. 

 Natural size. 



Geaster hygrometriens. Pers. 

 Water-Measuring Earth-Star. 



The unexpanded plant is nearly spherical. The mycelial layer is thin, tearing 

 away as the plant expands, the bark or skin falling with the mycelium. The outer 

 coat is deeply parted, the segments, acute at the apex, four to twenty; strongly 

 hygrometric, becoming reflexed when the plant is moist, strongly incurved when 

 the plant is dry. The inner coating is nearly spherical, thin, sessile, opening by 

 simply a torn aperture. There is no columella. The threads are transparent, much 

 branched, and interwoven. The spores are large, globose, and rough. 



The plant ripens in the fall and the thick outer peridium divides into seg- 

 ments, the number varying from four to twenty. When the weather is wet the 

 lining of the points of the segments become gelatinous and recurve, and the points 



