On the ground, often in beech-woods; also on decayed trunks.
New York, Ellis; Minnesota, Johnson; Ohio, Lloyd, R. 4. New York. Ground and decaying wood. Croghan. September. Peck, 28th Rep.
Specimens sent to the writer by Dr. W.B. Miller, Altoona, Pa., were 3½ in. across, and a beautiful velvety brown. Cooked they had a mushroom flavor.
P. vesiculo´sa Bull.—full of bladders. Clustered, often distorted from mutual pressure, sessile but more or less narrowed at the base, globose and closed at first, then expanding, but the margin usually remaining more or less incurved and somewhat notched; disk pale brown, externally brownish and coarsely granular from the presence of minute, irregular warts, 1.2–3 in. across. Spores obliquely 1-seriate, smooth, hyaline, continuous, elliptical, ends obtuse, 21–24×11–12µ; paraphyses slender, septate, clavate.
Var. ce´rea Rehm. Similar in size, habit and general structure to the typical form; differing in the wax-yellow color, the more distinct stem-like base, and the slightly smaller spores, 18–19×10µ; very brittle. Massee.
North Carolina, Curtis; California, H. and M.; Massachusetts, Frost; New Jersey, Ellis; Ohio, Lloyd, Rep. 4; var. minor, Sacc.; Nebraska, Clements; New York, Peck, Rep. 25.
Esculent. Cordier.
II.—Lachnea.
P. odora´ta Pk. Cups .5–3 in. broad, gregarious or scattered, thin, sessile, rather brittle when fresh, shallow, expanded or even convex from the decurving of the margin, at first brownish, then white or whitish, the hymenium ochraceous-brown; asci cylindrical, opening by a lid, .01-.012 in. long, .0006-.0008 in. broad, paraphyses filiform, obscurely septate, slightly thickened at the tips. Spores elliptical, even, 20–22.2×10–12.5µ.
Ground in cellar. Maine. June. F.L. Harvey.