224 



Mycologia 



above and below, lower surface smooth and velvety or scurfy- 

 villose. Stipe smooth and terete or unevenly undulate or flat- 

 tened or with some lacunae, especially toward the base but never 

 sulcate-costate, attenuate upward, fuscous to fuscous-black but 

 gray at the extreme base, villose like the lower surface of the 

 pileus, stuffed, 2-5 cm. high and 2-7 mm. thick at the base. Asci 

 200-300 X 15-18/*, cylindrical. Spores smooth, hyaline, ellip- 

 soidal, with one large and a number of much smaller oil drops, 

 15-20 X 9-1 2fi. Paraphyses slender, septate, enlarging upward to 

 S-gfx, hyaline to yellow-brown-tinted. (PL 12, figs. 16-17.) 



Gregarious on the ground and on wet rotten logs in the woods 

 in autumn. 



We have found this species but once in this state and since 

 this is the only recorded collection from New England, we judge 

 that the species is rare with us. Five specimens were found 

 growing on a very wet rotten maple log, in the edge of a swamp 

 in October. In all of our specimens the margins of the pileus 

 are adnate with the stipe but Fries and Rehm describe the pileus 

 as free. Bresadola, Boudier, Massee and others find that it is 

 sometimes adnate. In the face of such conflicting statements it 

 seems best to describe it as sometimes adnate. In other respects 

 our specimens agree very closely with the descriptions of Fries 

 and Rehm. There is also some variation in the color of the upper 

 surface of the pileus ; Fries describes it as fuliginous, Rehm as 

 smoke brown, Massee as sooty-black or black with a purple shade 

 becoming dingy-gray, Gillet presents a figure in which it is gray- 

 ish-white, etc. The pilei of our specimens were smoke-gray to 

 deep-mouse-gray while the stipes were fuscous to fuscous-black, 

 much darker than the pilei but gray at the extreme base. Rehm 

 finds a close relationship between this species and H. pezizoides 

 and H. ephippium but if our specimens are typical, it is very 

 easily distinguished from. the two latter species by the regularly 

 saddle-shaped pileus, deflexed and compressed, adnate and not at 

 all pezizoid. The main points of resemblance are the dark color 

 and the villose stipe and under surface of the pileus. The adnate 

 margins distinguish it from all the forms of H. elastica. It also 

 differs in the color of the stipe from all of them (except H. 

 elastica var. fusca) and in the villose character of the lower sur- 



