112 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts and Letters. 



brown siDinose capillitium and rough, opaque, paler si)ores 10 to 13 /i in di- 

 ameter. It differs from the European 31. Corium Desv. (also found in Ari- 

 zona and Colorado) in its decided purple color when freshly broken. I have 

 been able to test this latter species in Colorado, and find it i^alatable. 



SYNOPSIS OF LYCOPERDON.' 



Plants large ; peridium flaking away irregularly at top. 



Sculptured and somewhat f urfuraceous when young L. favoswrn. 



Not sculptured, mostly glabrous; very large L. Bovista, 



Small or medium-sized; opening by a pore at apex. ^ 



Spores brown, yellowish, or olive, smooth or minutely roughened. 

 Shaggy or with deciduous spines. 



Spores long-pedicelled ' L. pedicellatum. 



Spores stalkless. 



Fleecy, sessile; old peridium not pale-areolate ; growing in 



meadows and grass land L. Wrightii. 



Warty, the larger spines deciduous, leaving pale round 



dots;growing in the woods L. gemmatum. 



Smooth, or at most scurfy, (rarely sub-shaggy, i'D.L.pyriforme?}. 

 On rotting wood; gregarious; mostly stalked, with creeping 



white fibers L. pyriforme. 



On the ground; not gregarious. 



Spores ellipsoidal L. oblongisporum. 



Spores round or slightly obovoid. 



Peridium not dark-dotted, often mealy-scurfy. 



Sessile; usually under three-fourths inch L. pusillum. 



Often stalked; larger L. molle. 



Peridium dark-dotted when mature; sessile L. coloratum. 



Spores more or less red-purple, rough-warty. 

 At first spinulose or shaggy. 



Spines very long, white, all deciduous L. pulclierrvmum. 



Spines shorter, bufif or brown. 



Mature peridium mealy-roughened, but glossy L. atropurpureum. 



Not mealy; reticulated with small brown warts L. constellatum. 



Not at all shaggy. 



Reticulately furrowed ; somewhat flesh colored L. rimulatum. 



Not furrowed ; buff L. glabellum. 



1. Lycoperdon favosum (Rostk.). — Three to six inches in diameter, four 

 to five inches high, depressed, spherical with a stout conical base, marked 

 with coarse angular depressions, the pale fleecy outer peridium cracking so 

 as to expose the brown inner layer, in anastomosing lines. Spores and capil- 

 litium, snuff-color or greenish-brown, liberated by the breaking away of 

 the thick but fragile peridium. Spores slightly obovoid, nearly smooth, 

 stalkless, 4.25 — 4:.5X_i.5 — 5 //.—PL 1, f . 9. — Grassy fields, late summer and 

 autumn. 



1 Since the preparation of this paper, which was presented to the Academy in 1884, two 

 important publications on Lycoperdaceae have appeared, namely: a revision of the genus 

 Lycoperdon by Massee (Trans. Roy. Microsc. Soc. 1887, 701), and the compilation of the 

 entire group by De Toni, for the seventh volume of Saccardo's Sylloge Fungorum. So far 

 as possible, these have been consulted in a final revision of the manuscript for publication. 

 —May 10, 1888. 



