Figure 489.—Geaster velutinus.
Unexpanded plants globose, sometimes slightly pointed at apex. Mycelium basal. Outer layer rigid, membranaceous, firm, light colored in the American plant. The surface is covered with short, dense, appressed velumen, so that to the eye the surface appears simply dull and rough, but its true nature is readily seen under a glass of low power.
The outer surface separates from the inner as the plant expands, and in mature specimens is usually partly free. The thickness and texture of the two layers are about the same. The fleshy layer is dark reddish-brown when dry, a thin adnate layer. Inner peridium sessile, dark colored, globose, with a broad base and pointed mouth. Mouth even, marked with a definite circular light-colored basal zone. Columella elongated, clavate. Spores globose, almost smooth, small, 2½—3½ mc. Lloyd.
Myriostoma coliformis. Dick.
Figure 490.—Myriostoma coliformis. Natural size.
Exporidium usually recurved, cut to about the middle into six to ten lobes; if collected and dried when first open, rather firm and rigid; when exposed to weather becoming like parchment paper by the peeling off of the inner and outer layers. Inner peridium, subglobose, supported on several more or less confluent pedicels. Surface minutely roughened; mouths several, appressed fibrillose, round, plain or slightly elevated; columellæ several, filiform, probably the same in number as the pedicels; spores globose, roughened, 3–6 mc.; capillitium simple, unbranched, long, tapering, about half diameter of spores.
The inner peridium with its several mouths can be, not inaptly, compared to a "pepper-box." The specific name is derived from the Latin colum, a strainer, and the old English name we find in Berkeley "Cullender puffball" refers to a cullender (or colander more modern form) now almost obsolete in English, but meaning a kind of strainer. Lloyd.
Found in sandy soil. It is quite rare. Both the generic and specific names refer to its many mouths. The specimens in Figure 490 were found on Green Island, Lake Erie, one of the points where this rare species is found. It is found at Cedar Point, Ohio, also. The plant was photographed by Prof. Schaffner of the Ohio State University.