318 
Mycologia 
“I ate about five times as much as Mrs. Fries and in the be- 
ginning felt nothing. It took between one and two hours before 
the poisoning took effect on me. My respiratory organs were 
not affected at all, but for several hours, in fact, lasting from 
about 3 o’clock in the afternoon until 8 o’clock at night, I had 
all the queer mental as well as ‘ moral ’ sensations described in 
the ‘ Confessions of an Opium Eater.’ 
“ If such small quantities of this mushroom can act so power- 
fully, it seems to me dangerous in the extreme to speak of its 
qualities in such light manner as Mr. Mcllvaine does and I think 
the public should be strongly warned against using this species 
at all.” 
Lamprospora detonia sp. nov. 
Plants scattered, 5 to I2 mm. in diameter, sessile, plate-like, 
with margins elevated about 0.7 mm., slightly incurved and free 
from substratum, regular in form, becoming convolute on drying ; 
hymenium smooth, concave to plane, dark-brown to black with a 
green tint, the margin distinct and raised about o.i mm. from the 
apothecium, externally brown, rough and verrucose ; asci cylin- 
dric, about 1 5 in diameter, up to 300 fi long, hyaline ; spores 8, 
I -seriate, crowded into the upper third or one fourth of the ascus, 
at first smooth, with a large oil-globule, dilutely colored, becom- 
ing minutely warted, brown and opaque so as to appear black 
under the microscope, 12 to 15 /a in diameter; paraphyses slender, 
yellowish, the apex thickened and colored. 
Among moss on shaded ground, in woods on the banks of the 
Cheyenne River, near Anselm, N. Dak. This species differs from 
L. trachycarpa by the greenish tint of the hymenium and the 
smaller, minute, wart-like markings of the spores. When the 
plants are first raised from the shaded ground into sunlight, in a 
moment, a discharge of spores takes place. A small dust-cloud 
almost an inch high shoots up from the hymenium. The phe- 
nomenon may be explained by the warming and expansion of the 
air or gases in the lower two thirds of the asci. The spores, 
crowded into the upper end, are pressed against the operculum 
until it gives way and are then shot into the air. 
J. F. Brenckle. 
