[July 1905] The Host Pla?its of Panceolus Epimyces Peck . 1G7 
THE HOST PLANTS OF PANCEOLUS EPIMYCES PECK. 
HELEN SHERMAN. 
\ 
Panseolus epimyces, first discovered and described by Peck, 1 
has been found from time to time more or less abundantly in 
the vicinity of Madison, Wis. The same species has been re¬ 
ported near London, Ontario, from whence it was sent by Dear¬ 
ness 2 to the Lloyd Mycological Museum. Neither Peck nor 
Dearness mentioned the host plant of this fungus. 
Peck’s description is as follows: Pileus fleshy, at first sub- 
globose, then convex, white, silky-fibrillose, flesh soft, white or 
whitish; lamellae rather broad, somewhat close, rounded be¬ 
hind, adnexed, dingy white becoming brown or blackish with 
a white edge; stem short tapering upward, strongly striate and 
minutely mealy or pruinose, solid in the young plant hollow in 
the mature plant but with the cavity small, hairy or substrigose 
at the base; spores elliptical black, .ooo3'-.ooo35' long, .0002'- 
.00025' broad. Plant P-1.5' high, pileus 8"-12" broad, stem 3"-4" 
thick. Parasitic on fungi. 
North Greenbush, November. 
Specimens found in this region agree with this description 
quite closely. The only points of difference are that the pileus 
and spores are larger. The pileus is sometimes over 2 in. broad 
and the spores run up to .0004' long by .00028' broad. 
McKenna, 3 in 1900, studied the material collected at Madi¬ 
son and identified the host of all the specimens found up to that 
time as Coprinus atramentarius (Bull.) Fr. His material was 
always found growing in close connection with uninfected 
clumps of C. atramentarius. Upon sectioning the thickened 
edges of the hypertrophied mass of the host, he found the gills 
and hymenium well developed. He also found mature spores 
which were identical with those of C. atramentarius. From one 
to seven of the parasitic fruit bodies were found on a single 
host. 
In order to work out the relations of the hyphae of the host 
and parasite he fixed, imbedded and sectioned tissues from dif¬ 
ferent parts of several specimens especially from the point where 
the stipe of the parasite arises from the tissues of the host. The 
hyphae of the parasite were found to be denser and smaller than 
those of the host. They branch profusely toward their ends and 
are swollen at the very tips. These hyphae for the most part 
1 C. H. Peck. 35th Annual Report of New York Museum of Nat¬ 
ural History. Report pf Botanist, 1882, p. 133. 
2 Lloyd. 4th Report of Lloyd Mycological Museum for 1898. Cata¬ 
logue of Specimens added during 1898, p. 5. 
3 F. H. McKenna. Some Fungous Parasites of the Fungi. Thesis, 
Univ. of Wis., 1900, MSS., p. 18. 
