108 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts and Letters. 



to entertain the thought for a moment of collecting the latter except under 

 protest, and never of eating them, at least when mature. 



11. PUFF-BALLS. 



Order BASIDIOMYOETES. Sub-Order Gastbromycbtes. 



Fungi belonging to the Family Lycoperdaceae are usually, spoken of as 

 puff-balls, from the powdery character of their spores, that in most species 

 are emitted in clouds on the slightest touch. When young the plants are 

 rounded, colorless and fleshy, and most of the species are then edible. 

 Immature phalloids, already referred to, may be mistaken for puff-balls, 

 but when cut across they show a layer of translucent jelly just under the 

 surface. When ripe, the pretty little Lycogala epidendrum, which is 

 coram on about Madison ondecaying wood, and the subterranean Elaph- 

 omyces gramdatus, that we have not yet found, resemble, respectively, 

 Lycoperdon and Scleroderma in their general appearance, but differ 

 greatly in their development and fructification, the former belonging to 

 the Myxomycetes, the latter to the Ascomycetes. 



Our species of puff-balls may be referred to their genera by the appended 

 key, which, it should be observed, refers only to Madison species and 

 makes no provision for those which occur elsewhere : 



Outer peridium forming a star when mature Geaster. 



Outer iDeridium not star-shaped. 



Spores mixed with a conspicuous thread-like capilhtium. i 



Entire plant filled with spores and threads, the latter dichotomous 



from a main trunk Bovista. 



Base usually more or less spongy and sterile: threads without a main 



stem Lycoperdon. 



Spores when ripe withovit a fleecy capillitium. 



Plant with a solid central columella: spoi'es brownish Secotiuni. 



Without a columella ; spores purplish Scleroderma. 



SYNOPSIS OF GEASTER. 



Inner peridium sessile. 



Mouth few-toothed, not prominent, nor on a disk O. hygrometricus. 



Mouth silky-striate, conical, on a round disk G. saccatus. 



Inner peridium stalked. 



Mouth protruding, deeply plicate, plant small G. Rabenhorstii. 



Mouth not prominent or plicate, plant rather large G. limbatus. 



1. Geaster hygrometricus. P. — Outer peridium leathery, usually 

 irregvilarly 8-to-lO-rayed, the lobes often notched or forked at apex; with a 

 thick waxy inner layer cracking when dry, opening and closing with 

 changes in moisture when fresh. Inner peridium sessile, depressed, rough- 

 scurfy, with a star-shaped or irregularly torn, scarcely protruding mouth. 

 Capillitium somewhat anastomosing. Spores rough, 10 to 12 /<. in diame- 

 ter. — PL 1, f. 1. — Sandy places, in summer and autumn. 



•1 For a comparative study of the capillitium of these and other genera see Hesse: 

 Jahrb. f. wiss. Bot. x. (4), 383, pi. S8-29; Abst. in Bot. Jahresbericht, iv. 163. 



