68 



Minnesota Plant Life. 



is the stalked puff-ball. This plant is distinguished by a gray 

 stalk a quarter of an inch in diameter and two or three inches 

 high. At its top is developed a little flattened spherical blad- 

 der, perforate in the middle, within which are innumerable 

 brown spores. If the skin is squeezed the spores puff out at 

 the top like so much brown smoke, hence the common name, 

 puff-ball, which is applied to this plant and its relatives. 



Other puff-balls have not the same slender stalk that has just 

 been described. Several kinds are more or less pear-shaped, 

 standing with the small end downward and variously marked 

 in the different species. One variety is nearly smooth while 

 another is covered with ._, 



tiny warts of different 

 sizes, sometimes arranged 

 in patterns over the sur- 

 face. In others the sur- 

 face is spiny and some- 

 times the spines occur in 

 little clusters, with their 

 tops drawn together like 

 the stems of corn when 

 in the shock. If one of 

 these puff-balls be cut 

 lengthwise it will be seen 

 that the lower part is 

 spongy in texture and 

 does not produce spores, 

 so that this portion may be regarded as a short, thick stem. 

 The upper portion, however, produces an abundance of spores 

 which are ejected through an aperture in the ordinary manner. 



Still other puff-balls have no stalks, but the whole fruit-body 

 is a bladder filled with spores and some of the commonest of 

 all Minnesota puff-balls belong to this division. They are 

 found abundantly in fields and pastures and, when ripe, are flat- 

 tened dark purplish or plum-colored bodies from a quarter of an 

 inch to an inch in diameter. The whole inside of one of these 

 fruits consists of a fluffy mass of spores and threads the dried- 

 up stems upon which the spores develop. In the woods a stem- 

 less puff-ball is found of a lighter color, growing often as large 



FIG. 23. Warty puff-ball. After I^loyd. 



