ll scales, dehiscence irregular,
flocci yellow and spores dingy olive.

The species may be known by the thin and comparatively smooth peridium
and yellow flocci. It is quite common in the United States, while the
typical plant, S. verrucosum, is confined to a few localities along the
Atlantic coast.

_Scleroderma Cepa. Pers._

Cepa meaning an onion; having very much the appearance of an onion.

The peridium is thick, smooth, reddish-yellow to reddish-brown, opening
by an irregular mouth. The plant is sessile and quite strongly rooted
with fine rootlets. Its habitat, with us, is along the banks of small
brooks in the woods. It has been classed heretofore as S. vulgare,
smooth variety. I sent some to Prof. Peck, who quite agrees that they
should be separated from S. vulgare. Found from August to November.

_Scleroderma geaster. Fr._

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

Plate LXV. Figure 477.--Scleroderma geaster.]

Geaster, so called because it has a star-like opening somewhat similar
to the genus Geaster.

Peridium subglobose, thick, with a very short stem, or almost--sometimes
entirely--sessile; hard, rough, splitting into irregular stellate limbs;
frequently well buried in the ground. Inner mass dark-brown or blackish,
sometimes with rather a purplish tinge. Some grow quite large with the
peridium very thick. My attention was first attracted by some of the
peridium shells upon the ground on Cemetery Hill. The plant is quite
abundant there from September to December.

_Catastoma. Morgan._

This is a small puffball-like plant, growing just beneath the ground and
attached to its bed by very small threads which issue from every part of
the cortex, which is quite thick. Breaking away at maturity in a
circumscissile manner, the lower part is held fast to the ground, while
the upper part remains attached to the inner peridium as a kind of cup.
The inner peridium, with the top part of the outer peridium attached,
becomes loose and tumbles over the ground, the mouth being in the base
of the plant as it grew.

_Catastoma circumscissum. B. & C._

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

Figure 478.--Catastoma circumscissum.]

Circumscissum means divided into halves.

The peridium is usually round, more or less depressed, commonly rough
because of the soil attached; the larger part of the plant remaining in
the soil as a cup; the upper part with the inner peridium,
depressed-globose, thin, pallid, b