Report of the Botanist. (33 



would spoil before it could be used. It is said that when the growing plant 

 is cut or wounded, the wounds heal or fill up with new tissue. Cordier states 

 that the old flesh of this puff-ball is sometimes used for amadou, and that the 

 spores are mixed with milk by the Finns, to make a medicine for calves 

 afflicted with diarrhoea. They are also used, he says, in making various 

 shades of brown paint. The capillitium and spores of this and other species 

 are also said to have been used in staunching blood, and their fumes as an 

 anaesthetic. Fries says that there are two forms of this species, one obconic, 

 and the other larger and globose. All the specimens that I have seen were 

 depressed-globose, their vertical diameter being less than the horizontal. 

 As one correspondent expresses it, they were very much like a large round 

 loaf of bread in shape and in color. In all our specimens the sterile base 

 is very small in proportion to the size of the plant, so that, in the growing 

 state the plant must have appeared quite sessile. Probably the smaller 

 obconic form has a more distinct base. According to Fries, the species is so 

 variable in size, shape, color and the character of the surface, that from these 

 alone it is diflicult to distinguish it There is, however, no New York 

 species at present known to me with which it is likely to be confused, if the 

 characters of the mature peridium, and the color of the capillitium and spores 

 are observed. 



Lycoperdon cyathiforme Bosc. Cup-shaped Puff-Ball. 



Large, 3'-10' in diameter, nearly globose, generally furnished with a short 

 more or less thick stem-like base, whitish cinereous or pinkish-brown, smooth or 

 minutely floccose, sometimes with minute scattered spinules or floccose scales, 

 generally cracking in areas, the upper part at length falling away in fragments 

 and leaving a cup-shaped base with a lacerated margin ; capillitium and spores 

 purple-brown; spores rough .0002'-. 00025' in diameter. Edible. 



Ground in fields and pastures. Buffalo, Clinton. Oneida, Warne. Utica, 

 Johnson. Fort Edward, Howe. Albany, Sandlake, Maryland and South 

 Corinth. Autumn. 



Bosc's figure and description of this species, for a transcript of which I am 

 indebted to the kindness of Prof. Farlow, are not very satisfactory. They 

 were evidently derived from the basal remains of the effete plant, a mode of 

 describing fungi which is scarcely to be recommended. But in this case it 

 happens that there is no other known American puff-ball than the one here 

 described to which, in the effete condition, his description is applicable, 

 so that there is very little doubt as to the species he intended to describe. 

 A translation of his description is here given. 



" Sessile, conical, concave at the top, the margin thin and lacerated. 



" This species, which occurs in very dry and open places in fc'outh Carolina, 

 appears to have some resemblance to L. infundibulum Willd. Its color is 

 a grayish-violet, more distinct in the cavity. I have never seen it open 

 naturally to disseminate its seeds. Insects which perforate it, the feet of 

 quadrupeds which crush it, winds which blow it against trees supply this want." 



The use of the word sessile in this description is very natural, if we should 

 suppose as Bosc evidently did, that the sterile base was the only and normal 

 condition of the plant. " Conical " would probably have been more accurate, 

 if it had been written " obconical " or " inversely conical." This species, 

 occording to Dr. Berkeley, is apparently the same as L fragile Vitt. It is 

 also the L albopurpureum of Frost's List of Fungi in the Catalogue of 



