The Morels and Puff Balls of Madison. 119 



Synopsis of Scleroderma. 



Peridium thin, dark-dotted S. verrucosum. More conaceous, uniformly colored, 



usually furrowed or sculptured. — . S. vulgure. 



1. Scleroderma VERRUCOSUM (Vaill.) — Flattened biscuit-shaped, J to 

 1^ in. in diameter, neaiiy sessile or with a short stipe, radicating at base. 

 Peridium thin and flexible above, but tough; yellowish buff, a thin outer 

 layer cracking during development and persisting as small angular darker 

 scales; dehiscence irregular, apical, spoi-es purple, roundish, stalkless, 

 shai'pl}'' echinulate, StolOyW. — PL 3, f. 7. — One of the earhest and com- 

 monest of our puff-balls, on the bare ground in roads. I have also col- 

 lected si^ecimens above Kilbourn City, and the species is found at River 

 Falls {King) and is named in Bundy's hst. 



Neither this nor the following species is considered fit for food,' though 

 greedly devoured by snails. Even the young plants emit a disagreeable 

 pungent odor, quite different from that of other puff-balls. 



This is, at least in part, S. Bovista of Ellis, N. A. Fungi, no. 24; and, 

 perhaps, of Von Thuemen. Mycotheca Universalis, no. 607, — both from 

 New Jersey, but in my own copy of the Mycotheca, and in Dr. Farlow's, 

 the latter number appears to be a form of S. vulgare. Our plant is that 

 figured by Nees (Syst. du Schwamme, pi. 11, f. 124) under the name Bo- 

 vista xiluinhea, obviously an error. It is not evidently different, except in 

 the shortness of its stipe, from Lycoperdon verrucosum, sj)haericum, etc., of 

 Vaillant (Bor. Parisiense, pi. 16, f. 7), L. verrucosum of Bulliard (PL Venen. 

 de la France, pi. 24), L. defossum. Sowerby (British Fungi, lA. 311), and 



Scleroderma verrucosum, Greville (Scot. Crypt. Flox-a , pi. — ). It is 



also qmie similar to that figured by Sorokine (Ann. Sci. Nat. 6 ser. iii. pi. 

 6 f. 12 f.) as S. verrucosum, and agrees in all essentials with a French spec- 

 imen in the Curtis herbarium referred to verrucosum by Desmazieres. The 

 transparent border to the young spores, figured by the Tulasnes (Ann. Sci. 

 Nat. 2 ser. xvii. pi. 1, A. f. 8) in what they doubtfully refer to this species, 

 and which I have noticed in S. vulgare, f . minor of Saccaede's Mycotheca 

 Veneta. no. 1412, has not been observed by me in American specimens of 

 either species; but is held by Caspary (Sitzber. Geo. zu Konigsberg, 1886, 

 xxvii, 203) to be merely an immature character. 



2. Scleroderma vulgare Fr. — Depressed globose, narrowed and radicat- 

 ing below, three-fourths to two in. in diameter. Peridium pinkish or buff, 

 thick, smooth or finely checked by intersecting dark furrows about one- 

 sixteenth in. apart. Spores as in the last, laine to fifteen //, the spore-mass 

 when maturing separated into small grains by bundles of pale gray hyphae. 



' Scleroderma vulqare is commonly held to be poisonous to man, but according to Smith 

 (.Gard. Chron. 1885, 48) and Caspany (Schrift. Physik.— Ockonom. Gesellsch zu Kouigsberg, 

 xxvii, 109; Bot. Centralblatt, xxx, 34), it is collected in parts of England aud Germany as a 

 truffle and eaten after cooking, without known ill effects. But its bad name should be 

 borne in mind by anyone desirous of experimenting with it. 



