220 
Journal of Mycology 
[Vol. 9 
up the question of where the secidial stage might be found. 
Learning that Dr. Arthur had made cultures of secidia on a 
Rumex from the teleutospores of Phragmites rust, it occurred to 
me that Rumex britannica which grows abundantly in these 
marshes must be the host plant. On April 9th I visited one of the 
patches of Phragmites and collected leaves for a culture. In my 
back yard is a large crown of Rumex altissimus, and over this I 
laid several rusted leaves of the Phragmites, putting a stone on 
one end and allowing the other to flop in the wind. On May 
28th I found the Dock leaves heavily infected, some of the lower 
leaves having white secidia ready for collection. This suggested 
a visit to the marsh containing Rumex britannica. Here I waded 
into the marsh and was rewarded by finding secidia in abundance, 
but still a little immature. Specimens were collected for dis¬ 
tribution. 
I next began inspecting my neighbors’ gardens and found 
good secidia on Rheum rhaponticum in four gardens, two near 
my home, one three-quarters of a mile east, and the other four 
miles distant westward. I concluded from this that the spores 
had not come from my experiment, but were generally distributed 
by the wind. 
A week later I collected another set of secidia from Rumex 
britannica in the marsh, finding the spots lessening in number as 
the distance from the grass increased, and none at all a few hun¬ 
dred feet away. 
On June 9th I found an secidium in small quantity on Rumex 
altissimus by the creek bank, three blocks south of my home, and 
one good spot of it on Rumex crispus. 
We have therefore, in twelve months, found the secidia on 
four hosts in the Dock Family, namely; Rheum rhaponticum, 
Rumex altissimus, Rumex britannica, and Rumex crispus. The 
uredo and teleutospore stages are common on the Reed Grass— 
Phragmites phragmites. As this grass as well as Rumex britan¬ 
nica are common through the northern states it is probable that 
the rust may be found here and there if carefully searched for. 
Red Cloud, Nebraska. 
POISONING BY LEPIOTA MORGAN! PK. 
F. L. STEVENS. 
The genus Lepiota according to Engler and Prantl, follow¬ 
ing Saccardo, contains some 270 species, about thirty of which are 
native to America, 18 being found in New York alone. It be¬ 
longs to the white spored series of the Agaricaceae and is distin¬ 
guished from the other members of this series by the absence 
of a volva, presence of an annulus, which is often moveable, and 
