168 
Mvcologia 
plants. The dift'erences are no greater than might be expected 
in plants from such widely separated localities. In some char- 
acters, such as spore measurements, Peck and Lanzi agree better 
than Peck and Atkinson. Lanzi does not describe his plant as 
a parasite nor recognize the “ tuberous mass ” at the base of the 
stipe as an abortive host. His figures, however, leave no ques- 
tion as to the identity of the parts in the two forms. His interpre- 
tation of the cleft which appears in the vertical section of the 
basal bulb is erroneous. Such a cleft could not possibly have 
anything to do with the formation of a ring and it has been 
recognized by the American students of the material with entire 
unanimity as representing the gill cavity of the host. In the 
IMadison material, rudimentary gills and ripe spores of the Copri- 
niis are found in this cleft. Lanzi also misinterprets his figure 
c, which must have been based on a mature stage of the plant 
with a very short stipe. Lanzi regards the fungus as rare and 
apparently neither he nor Quelet ever collected it personally. 
The American plant was first described as Panaeolus epimyces 
Peck (Rep. N. Y. State Mus. 35: 133-134). Dr. Peck left the 
host plant undetermined. Atkinson described the same plant in- 
dependently, naming it Stropharia coprinophila, and determined 
the host plant as Coprinus atramcntarins October, 
1902). Mr. F. E. McKenna and iMiss Helen Sherman studied 
the plant at Madison, Wisconsin, and determined the host plants 
as Coprinus atramentarius and Coprinus comatus ( 1 . c. ioj-i6q. 
1905). Prof. Atkinson has written a second paper on the plant in 
which he admits the identity of his plant with Panaeolus epimyces 
of Peck, but holds that it is a Stropharia and names it Stropharia 
epimyces (Peck) Atk. 
The European and American forms certainly belong to a single 
group, including Pilosace algeriensis (Eries) Quel. (El. Jura 
^Msg. 351), Panaeolus epimyces Peck, and Stropharia coprino- 
phila Atk. The common method followed by Atkinson when he 
made the combination Stropharia epimyces (Peck) Atk. results in 
the burying of much information about it. Atkinson wrote a new 
description of the plant and when this is compiled in the Sylloge 
or a manual the student cannot know that other spore measure- 
ments than 3. 5-4. 5 X 7-8 /j. have been observed; that the gills 
