plant such as we found it was described and illustrated by most of the 
very earliest botanists Micheli, Schaeffer, Bulliard, Dittman, and call¬ 
ed Agaricus Eycoperdoides, Elvella clavus, Asterophora Eycoperdoides. 
It was not known in those days that it was a deformed state of a gill 
bearing plant and Fries first accepted that view in Epic. Syst. (1836-8). 
The plant rarely develops gills, such as shown in Cooke’s figure, and 
the ordinary basidiospores of Agarics. That this state must be rare we 
judge from the statement in the recent Engler & Prantl where these 
basidiospores are stated to be “smooth and brown” on the authority of 
Karsten. The common form is the little abortive plants we have fig¬ 
ured bearing a dense coat of stellate spores on the top of the pileus. 
The nature of these spores w 7 as long a disputed question in Europe. 
Corda, Bonorden and Tulasne contended that they w 7 ere the spores of 
a separate parasite, a species of Hypomyces, which grew 7 on the pileus 
of this parasitic Agaric, and Fries from the quotation w 7 e have given 
w 7 as evidently inclined to this view. De Bary has established however 
and it is now generally accepted in Europe that they are a secondary 
form of spores of the Agaric called by De Bary chlamydospores. 
De Bary’s position v 7 as maintained by demonstration that the hyphae 
bearing these spores w r ere continuous with the hyphae of the plant. 
We are surprised that De Bary did not advance the argument that the 
plant would not develop a special membrane to protect them when 
young if they were parasitic. Indeed, this seems to have been over¬ 
looked by all those engaged in the discussion in Europe. It v T ill prob¬ 
ably be news to most of our readers that an agaric should, in addition 
to the usual spores on the gills, bear an entirely different kind of 
spores on the top of the pileus. Has any one ever seen Nyctalis astero¬ 
phora in this country with the gills developed ? 
138—GYROPHRAGMIUM (?) DECIPIENS. 
We have received through the kindness of Eouis A. Greata, a 
specimen of the plant called by Prof. Peck, Secotium decipiens. As 
the genera of these curious plants are now 7 known this .species is a 
Gyrophragmium or Polyplocium for the plates are arranged in a 
somewhat lamellate manner, indeed the plant comes very near being 
an agaric. Some time ago Berkeley described a “Scleroderma” from 
Texas, Scleroderma Texense, which Massee since placed in the genus 
Gyrophragmium. If the Texas species is a Gyrophragmium there is 
a probability of it being the same as the Californian but w 7 e v r ill have 
to know 7 more about both before it can be decided. 
We have always claimed that hunting up of old names to re¬ 
place familiar names in use belongs to the antiquarian not the botanist, 
and now Worthington G. Smith refers some of the “illustrations of 
fungi” more properly to the “Stone Age.” 
“Some published plates of fungi, both old and new, are ex¬ 
tremely bad both in drawing and color; some inycological “artists” do 
not seem to have possessed the most elementary knowledge of drawing, 
and the illustrations compare unfavorably even with the art w r orks of 
palaeolithic men .”—Worthington G. Smith , in Journal of Botany. 
62 
