West Virginia, 1881–1885; Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina. Frequent, thin moist woods. July to November. McIlvaine.
C. saccata, the long-stemmed puff-ball, is a common and pleasing species. Shape, color, feel, combine to make it attractive. It is one of the very best we have. When white inside and otherwise in good condition it is delicious.
Calvatia elata.
(After Morgan.)
C. ela´ta Massee. Peridium globose or depressed-globose above, plicate below and abruptly contracted into a long stem-like base; the base slender, cylindric or tapering downward, sometimes pitted; mycelium fibrous and filamentous. Cortex a very thin coat of minute persistent spinules or granules; inner peridium white or cream-colored, becoming brown or olivaceous, very thin and fragile, after maturity the upper part soon breaking up into fragments and falling away. Subgleba occupying the stem-like base, a long time persistent; mass of spores and capillitium brown or brownish-olivaceous; the threads very long, branched, the main stem as thick as the spores, the branches more slender. Spores globose, even or very minutely warted, 4–5µ in diameter with a short or minute pedicel.
Growing among mosses in low grounds and bushy places. New England, Humphrey; New York, Peck. Peridium 1–2 in. in diameter and 3–6 in. in height, the stem-like base ½-¾ of an inch in thickness. This American form of Lycoperdon saccatum has lately been separated from it, and named, figured and described as Lycoperdon elatum by George Massee. Morgan.
Edible.
GENUS IX.—LYCOPER´DON Tourn.
Mycelium fibrous, rooting from the base. Peridium small, globose, obovoid or turbinate, with a more or less thickened base; cortex a subpersistent coat of soft spines, scales, warts or granules; inner peridium thin, membranaceous becoming papyraceous, dehiscent by a regular apical mouth. Morgan.