304 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [OCTOBER 
I thought the spores were white, and they are colorless in specimens 
which are not very mature, but when the plant is quite mature, the 
inner peridium well opened and more or less collapsed, the spores 
mostly have a pale yellowish-brown color. The plant is attached to 
the moss and the bark by numerous threads, which radiate irregularly 
from the outer cup-shaped layer of the outer peridium, and the 
mycelium extends also into the dead bark, penetrating more clearly 
through the lines of cleavage in the bark, both radial and tangential. 
Fic. 1.—Geaster leptospermus. Smaller plants, upper right hand corner, natural 
size. Others X 2.5, the one at the left collapsed and broken away from cuplike base, 
which is also collapsed, but is shown as. a well formed and distinct layer. Plant at 
extreme right in early stage of dehiscence; outer peridium split into 4 rays. 
In some cases delicate rhizomorphic strands are developed quite 
abundantly in the tangential cleavage planes. The plants are whitish, 
but when mature pale gray in color. They are oval to globose,3-4.5"" 
in diameter. Before the dehiscence of the outer peridium takes place, 
the plants are inconspicuous and appear as minute rounded bodies, or 
minute convex whitish surfaces in the moss. But after dehiscence 
takes place the fornicate character of the plant lifts the inner perid- 
ium so far above the moss that it is quite conspicuous, except for its 
minute size. When dehiscence of the outer peridium first takes place 
it splits radially into three or four rays, showing the white granular 
surface of the inner peridium, with its well defined mouth, which is 
radiately silky, but not sulcate nor striate. The inner face of the 
outer peridium is also seen to be granular. As the plant expands 
more the inner layer of the outer peridium separates from the outer 
eS a ae 
