

Fig. 270. 



Bovistella echinella (x6). 



A BOVISTELLA WITH A GEASTER MOUTH. 



Robert E. Fries has collected at Torne Trask, Lapland, the rare 

 little Bovistella echinella, which is the sixth collection known of this 



rare little species 

 and the second made 

 in Europe. The col- 

 lection presents all 

 the usual characters 

 of this unique spe- 

 cies, and some speci- 

 mens have protrud- 

 i n g mouths, as 

 shown in our photo- 

 graph (Fig. 270, 

 X6) . This is a fea- 

 ture common in Ge- 

 asters, but which I 

 never before noted 

 on a Lycoperdon or 

 Bovistella. In ex- 

 amining my original 

 photograph of this 

 species I note indi- 

 cations of this pro- 

 truding mouth (Plate 89), a feature that escaped me at the time. 

 A full account of this rare, little species was given (Myc. Notes, 

 page 286, Plate 89), with a list of the previously known stations. The 

 photograph herewith is somewhat misleading, as the "cup" at the 

 base is a piece of earth and not a part of the plant, as might appear. 

 It is enlarged (X6), as Bovistella echinella is one of the smallest and 

 rarest "puff balls" known. 



GUI BONO? 



In a separate cover at Berlin are specimens distributed by C. F. Baker, 

 under the name Cyathus lentiferus, "Determined by Miss White." As Miss 

 White never recognized the genus Cyathus in her publication, she seems to 

 have repudiated her own work, which was a wise thing to do in view of the fact 

 that her genus "Cyathia" (sic) was such a silly proposition. 



In another cover at Berlin are probably a hundred specimens of exactly 

 the same plant labeled, Cyathus vernicosus, as the plant is known to every 

 one except Miss White. The young man who incorporated the Baker specimens 

 did not recognize Miss White's juggling and therefore made a useless new 

 cover for it. But all name-juggling is not done at New York. The Europeans 

 have had several themselves, who with their little date dictionaries look up the 

 dates given in Fries and Persoon and proceed to change names. Three covers, 

 one after the other, at Berlin, Fomes pinicola, Fomes marginatus, and Fomes 

 ungulatus, all exactly the same plant, pose in the collection as different plants, 

 due to such changing. The old botanists, Persoon and Fries, had ideas of 

 distinction between Fomes pinicola and Fomes marginatus, and even if we 

 can not agree with them we recognize that they had definite ideas on the 

 subject. The present school of jugglers seems devoid of all ideas except that 

 one date is earlier than another date, with the intimation that Persoon and 

 Fries did not know enough to know that. 



45 2 



