The species grow on the ground, in spring. Massee.
V. digitalifor´mis Pers.—digitus, a finger. Pileus at first nearly even, olivaceous-umber, dark at the apex. Stem obese, furnished at the base with a few reddish radicles, white with a slight rufous tinge, marked with transverse reddish spots; smooth to the naked eye, but under a lens clothed with fine adpressed flocci, the rupture of which gives rise to the spots, which are, in fact, minute scales. In the mature plant the pileus is ¾ in. high, bell-shaped, finger-form, or subglobose, more or less closely pressed to the stem, but always free, the edge sometimes inflexed so as to form a white border, wrinkled, but not reticulated, under side slightly pubescent; sporidia yellowish, elliptic. Stem 3 in. high, ½ in. or more thick, slightly attenuated downward, loosely stuffed, by no means hollow. Berkeley.
Minnesota, Johnson; California, H. and M.; New York, Buffalo, Clinton; Oneida, Warne, May. Peck, 30th, 32d Rep.
Mt. Gretna, July, 1897. Road-side bank. McIlvaine.
Sold in Italy. Vittadini. Not to be despised when one can not get better nor to be eaten when one can. Badham.
The substance of this fungus is the same as that of Helvella. It is pleasant but rather tasteless.
LEOTIA Hill.
Ascophore stipitate, substance fleshy, soft and somewhat gelatinous. Pileus orbicular, spreading; margin drooping or incurved free from the stem, glabrous, hymenium entirely covering the upper surface. Stem central, elongated; asci cylindric-clavate, apex narrowed, 8-spored. Spores hyaline, continuous or 1-septate, elongated and narrowly elliptical, obliquely 1–2 seriate; paraphyses present.
Growing on the ground, or on decaying wood. Hill. Emended. Massee.
Stem long. Pileus flattened, margin incurved, covered everywhere with the smooth, somewhat viscid hymenium.