30 
Journal of Mycology 
[Vol. 12 
Plants solitary or gregarious, often densely so, sessile or 
stipitate; ascomata at first closed, then expanding until hemi- 
spherical-cupulate, the margin slightly incurved, occasionally 
becoming saucer-shaped; hymenium at first bluish-pallid or 
creamy-wliite changing to ochraceous, finally becoming dark 
brown when old or dry, externally slightly darker, velvety on 
account of the short bay-brown hairs, which are flexuous, rather 
thin-walled, obtuse, 1-4 (rarely more) septate, the segments 
somewhat irregular, about 100-250x20^ (rarely longer) ; plants 
variable in size, .5-4 cm. in diam., 1-2.5 cm * deep, fleshy-leathery, 
pliable, flesh thin; excipulum and hymenium equally thick, the 
former composed of two distinct layers of equal thickness: the 
ental one of interwoven hypae, 5 /a thick, running more or less 
parallel to the sides of the cup; the ectal one parenchymatous, 
cells more or less quadrate, somewhat longer than broad, with 
rather thick walls, arranged in rows at right angles to the sur¬ 
face, some of the rows being continued outward to form the 
hairs; stem either entirely absent or up to 1.5 cm. high, .5-1 cm. 
thick, compressed, often longitudinally sulcate or puckered at the 
summit, velvety. Asci stout, cylindrical-clavate, apex rounded, 
not blue with iodine, 260-325x15-1 S/x; spores 8, obliquely uni- 
seriate or rarely subbiseriate above, hyaline, continuous, fusi¬ 
form, at maturity distinctly granular roughened, contents gran¬ 
ular, 2-guttulate, straight or curved, 32-44x10-11^ (majority 
36-41/x). Paraphyses cylindrical, septate, brown, slightly thick¬ 
ened above, 6-8/x, thick. 
On soil and humus, rarely on very rotten wood, in rich 
woods and on slopes of ravines, July to Sept. Ontario to Ala¬ 
bama and Iowa. 
A common and characteristic, but variable species. The 
average diameter is about 2 cm., but specimens twice that size 
are not uncommon. Berkeley and Massee described their plants 
from dried material in which the hymenium is brown. Gerard, 
on the other hand, described the hymenium as “at first ochra¬ 
ceous, at length dark brown.” The creamy or ochraceous tints 
are the ones most often seen, but in very fresh young specimens 
the color is paler resembling that of Lachnea hemispherica. As 
previously stated, about one-half to two-thirds of the ascomata 
possess some sort of a stem, and all variations may be seen in 
a single group. The length of the hairs also varies considerably, 
but those longer than 250 [x are rarely seen. The dried flesh 
when moistened up is distinctly leathery-gelatinous, but this 
character is not evident in the fresh state. The young spores 
are smooth and smaller than mature ones, the latter being dis¬ 
tinctly roughened in all the examples I have seen. The shape 
is distinctly fusiform rather than elliptical-oblong as in the next 
species. They are very rarely as short as 33^. In Gerard’s col¬ 
lections of P. fusicarpa they measure 33-43x10-12/*; in the type 
