mriTED STATES SPECIES OE LYCOPERDOX. 



By Charles II. Peck, A.M. 



[Read before tlie Albany Institute Feb. 4tb, 1879.1 



The literature of the puff-balls of the United States is 

 very much scattered and in some instances scarcely ac- 

 cessible, the descriptions are often imperfect and unsatis- 

 factory and the technical terms employed in describing 

 the species are scarcely intelligible, without explanation, 

 to any except mycologists. It has tlierefore seemed de- 

 sirable to bring together the descriptions of all our species, 

 so far as known, and, for the purpose of rendering them 

 more satisfactory and intelligible to the general reader, 

 to remodel them, giving them more uniformity of style 

 and more completeness of detail and employing the 

 strictly technical terms only after having given an expla- 

 nation of their meaning. Besides this the specific de- 

 scriptions have been supplemented by remarks upon 

 the general and more obvious characters, and the dis- 

 tinguishing features of such species as are closely allied and 

 liable to be confused have been specially mentioned. It is 

 believed that the species thus described can be identified 

 without the aid of a microscopic examination of the spores, 

 but for the sake of completeness the spore characters have 

 been given in all cases in which they were ascertainable. 

 In nearly all cases the descriptions have been drawn up 

 with the specimens before me. 



The following is the generic description translated 

 from Fries' Systema Ifycologicum and usually given in the 

 mycological Manuals. 



LTCOPERDON Toum. 



"Peridium membranaceous, vanishing above or be- 

 Irans. ix.'] 37 



