a cup-shaped base with a ragged margin. Spores
globose, rough, purple-brown, 5-6.5 broad. _Peck_, 48th Rep. N. Y.
State Bot.

It is very common all over the state. I have seen pastures in Shelby and
Defiance counties dotted all over with this species. When the inside is
white, they are very good and meaty. No puffball is poisonous, so far as
is known, but if the inside has turned yellowish at all it is apt to be
quite bitter. It will often be seen in pastures and open woods in the
form of a cup, the upper portion having broken away and the wind having
scooped out the purple spore-mass, leaving only the cup-shaped base. The
specimens in Figure 457 are just beginning to crack open and to show
purplish stains. They represent less than one-fourth of the natural
size. They look very much like the smaller sized C. gigantea, but the
purple spores and the subgleba at once distinguish the species. This
species, found from July to October, is sometimes classed as Lycoperdon
cyathiforme. The photograph was taken by Prof. Longyear.

[Illustration: Figure 457.--Calvatia lilacina.]

_Calvatia caelata. Bull._

THE CARVED PUFFBALL. EDIBLE.

[Illustration: _Photo by C. G. Lloyd._

Plate LIX. Figure 458.--Calvatia caelata.]

[Illustration: Figure 459.--Calvatia caelata.]

Caelata, carved. Peridium large, obovoid or top-shaped, depressed above,
with a stout thick base and a cord-like root. Cortex a thickish floccose
layer, with coarse warts or spines above, whitish then ochraceous or
finally brown, at length breaking up into areola which are more or less
persistent; inner peridium thick but fragile, thinner about the apex,
where it finally ruptures, forming a large, irregular, torn opening.
Subgleba occupying nearly half the peridium, cup-shaped above and for a
long time persistent; the mass of spores and capillitium compact,
farinaceous greenish-yellow or olivaceous, becoming pale to dark-brown;
the threads are very much branched, the primary branches two or three
times as thick as the spores, very brittle, soon breaking up into
fragments. Spores globose, even, 4-4.5 in diameter, sessile or
sometimes with a short or minute pedicel. Peridium is three to five
inches in diameter. _Morgan._

This species is much like the preceding but can be easily distinguished
by the larger size and the yellowish-olive color of the mature
spore-mass. The sterile base is often the larger part of the fungus and,
as will be seen in Figure 459, it