30 LYCOPERDON 



coloured, smooth, verrucose, or echinulate, globose, subglobose, or 

 elliptical, sometimes with the sterigma remaining attached. Super- 

 ficial. 



LYCOPERDACEAE. 



Same characters as the suborder. 



Lycoperdon (Tournef.) Pers. 

 (XVKOS, a wolf; "jrepBo/j^ai, I break wind.) 



Peridium globose, or variously shaped; exoperidium pseudo- 

 parenchymatous, fleshy, or membranaceous, spinulose, warted, 

 granular, or smooth, fugacious; endoperidium membranaceous, or 

 papyraceous, thin, dehiscing by an apical aperture, or by the gradual 

 falling away of the upper portion. Gleba with, or without, a sterile 

 base. Capillitium threads long, branched, not consisting of a distinct 

 stem and branches, attached to the peridium or to a central columella. 

 Spores coloured, echinulate, verrucose, or smooth, globose, or ellip- 

 tical. Superficial. 

 I. Peridium dehiscing by the upper portion gradually falling away in 



pieces. Capillitium very long, and much branched. Sterile base 



persistent. 



30. L. giganteum (Batsch) Pers. (= Lycoperdon Bovista (Linn.) Fr.) 



Boud. Icon. t. 188-189, as Lycoperdon Bovista Linn. 



7/ya9, giant. 



Pe. 15-16 cm., white, then yellowish, or olivaceous, globose, or de- 

 pressed, oval, pumpkin-shaped, often more or less plicate at the base, 

 sessile, attached by a cord-like mycelium; exoperidium at first sub- 

 tomentose, then becoming smooth like a kid glove, fragile, ultimately 

 splitting up and falling away in pieces from the endoperidium, which 

 is also very thin, brittle and evanescent above. Gleba white, then 

 yellowish and finally olivaceous, compact. Sterile base very thin, or 

 almost absent. Spores olivaceous, or brownish, verrucose, globose, 

 sometimes pedicellate, 4-5 /LI. Capillitium brown, very long, branched, 

 septate, 3-5/u, in diam., persistent. Edible. Pastures, gardens and 

 roadsides. May Nov. Common, (v.v.) 



31. L. caelatum (Bull.) Fr. (= Lycoperdon favosum (Rostk.) Bonord.) 



Berk. Outl. Brit. Fung. t. 20, fig. 7. Caelatum, engraved. 



Pe. 7-12 cm., white, then ochraceous, and finally tinged brownish, 

 subglobose, oval or depressed, contracted below into a more or less 

 stem-like base with thick mycelium; exoperidium floccose, covered 

 with large, distant warts, and cracking into net-like areolae; warts 

 evanescent above, and separating in patches from the endoperidium; 

 endoperidium thick, fragile, thinner in the upper half and finally 

 falling away in pieces, leaving only the cup-like sterile base with its 



