specimens (not species, I think) are partially persistent as pedicels. 

 Usually these pedicels are absorbed in the process of deliquescence, 

 and it is not unusual to note spores in the same specimens with vary- 

 ing remains of the sterigmata. 



HISTORY. Up to last year the known species of Arachnion were really one 

 species, originally named Arachnion album, by Schweinitz, who noted the pecu- 

 liarities on which the genus rests. It is so small and rare that it is not often col- 

 lected, but we receive it occasionally from the United States, West Indies, South 

 America, Australia, and South Africa. One correspondent (Miss A. V. Duthie) re- 

 ports it very common in South Africa (Note 191). In Europe it is known to this 

 day from a single collection sent me in 1905 by Rev. L. Badet, from Salussola, Italy. 

 Last year Miss Duthie added from South Africa a very peculiar species Arachnion 

 Scleroderma (Myc. Notes, p. 538), and now sends a giant species, which was 

 entirely unexpected in this genus of heretofore pigmy puff balls. 



ARACHNION ALBUM (Fig. 917). Peridium smooth, thin 

 and fragile, never opening by a definite mouth, but breaking irreg- 

 ularly, pale in color, pure white when young. Gleba composed of 

 little grains called peridioles, each con- 

 sisting of a mass of spores surrounded 

 by a few, loose, hyphae threads (capil- 

 litium). Spores smooth, globose, 5-6 

 mic., sometimes with fragments of the 

 persistent sterigmata attached. Gleba 



Fig. 918 . 



color in the type form ash gray. Our figure 917 is this plant, natural 

 size. Fig. 918 a section enlarged about six diameters to show the na- 

 ture of the peridioles. 



We gave in Mvcological Notes, page 253, the slight variations we have noted 

 in this plant from different localities. They do not merit distinctive names, except- 

 ing perhaps as to the following. 



Arachnion bovista (Chile), same exactly as Arachnion album, excepting the 

 gleba is brown instead of ash gray. 



Arachnion rufum (Australia, M. N., p. 254) is a more robust plant than Arach- 

 nion album with a thicker, reddish brown peridium and brown gleba It is onlv 

 known from one collection from D. McAlpine. 



ARACHNION SCLERODERMA FROM MISS A V 

 DUTHIE, SOUTH AFRICA.-Peridium globose, M^ cm in di- 

 ameter, with a strong, rooting base. Sterile base none. Peridium 

 thin, with large, irregular warts on the order of the warts of Sclero- 

 derma aurantiacum. Gleba greenish olive. Peridioles irregular, both 

 in size and shape, from globose to narrowly elongated, or obtusely 

 triangular, 60-300 mic. in diameter. Spores globose, or slightly oval, 

 smooth, mostly pedicellate, with slender pedicels; 6-20 mic. long. 



644 



