79—The Genus Volvaria Again. 
(See Myc. Notes, Xos. 15. 38 and 39.1 
We present additional photographs of two species. 
80—VOLVARIA PUSSILA. 
At the time we described this plant (see No. 
18) we had no good photograph from nature and 
reproduced a European plate. We are glad to 
publish a photograph showing well this little 
species and its peculiar four parted volva. 
81—VOLVARIA VILLOSAVOLVA 
Pileus convex, even, dry, silky 
fibrillose, somewhat rimose, gray. 
Gills free, remote. Stipe solid, 
pure white, smooth, slightly taper- 
ingupward. Volvaglobose, densely 
covered with long, white myceloid 
hairs. Spores globose, 5 me. 
We found this plant growing attached to 
fallen leaves and rich earth in a damp ravine 
in the woods. The abundant white myceloid 
hairs which extend up and cover the volva 
are its prominent characters. They are very 
tender and dry quite quickly. When the 
plants were gathered and before we could 
get them home to photograph, the tender 
' hairs had disappeared from our best specimen, 
the middle one in the photograph, though 
well shown on the small specimen on the 
right, the one here figured. We have seen 
this species but once, but then found quite a 
colony of them, every one strongly characterized by the white myceloid hair. 
Had this plant been described from a dried specimen its characteristic feature 
would have been omitted. 
82-DRIED SPECIMEN DESCRIPTIONS. 
We note in a recent Bulletin of Kew Gardens, thatMassee has published 
a number of “new species” of Agarics from dried specimens sent from the 
Straits Settlement and other Colonies. What a lot of trouble is in store for 
the future workers in those countries when they attempt to identify the grow¬ 
ing plants from these descriptions! If Prof. Massee realized the terrible jum¬ 
ble American mycology is now in thanks to the misdirected efforts of Berke¬ 
ley, Montague and others to describe our plants from dried specimens we can 
not believe that he would continue this line of work. We take no exceptions 
to “new species” from dried specimens of plants that retain their characters 
when dry, such as Gestromycetes. most Polyperii, etc , but in the case of 
Agarics we feel and candidly state that nine-tenths of the descriptions are not 
only useless but worse than useless. 
Our synopsis of Psalliota in this pamphlet illustrates this fact. Four 
species of Psalliota were described by Berkeley and Montague forty to fifty 
31 
Fig. a.. 
Volvaria villosavolva. 
Fig 1. 
Volvaria pussila. 
