LYCOPERDACEÆ.
Genus Bovista Dill. Peridium papery (or sometimes corky), persistent; the outer rind, sometimes called the bark, quite distinct from the inner, at length shelling off. Capillitium sub-compact, equal, adnate to the peridium on all sides; spores pedicillate, brownish.
Figs. 9 and 10.—Bovista plumbea Pers. Lead-Colored Bovista.
Plant small, spherical, having a double shell or peridium, the inner one white and the outer one smooth and greyish lead-color or bluish-grey, and shelling off at maturity. When young the interior is filled with a creamy white substance. This soon begins to disintegrate, and, as the spores mature, changes to a mass of dusty brown spores and threads. When the spores are ready for dissemination a small aperture appears in the top of the peridium, through which they push their way outwards like a little puff of smoke.
When young, and while the flesh is white throughout, the plant is edible, although so small that it would take a quantity to make a good dish. It is found chiefly in pastures in the autumn. Sometimes found growing in company with Agaricus campestris. Of pleasant flavor when young.
Fig. 11. Basidium and spores of a Lycoperdon highly magnified.
An English author states that inflammation of the throat and swelling of the tongue have been known to ensue from eating some of the small species of Lycoperdon in the raw state. It would be a wise precaution, therefore, to cook all of the smaller species well before eating.
The genus Scleroderma is allied to Lycoperdon, but differs from it in the absence of a capillitium, and in the thick indehiscent outer skin, or peridium, which bursts irregularly on the maturity of the spore-mass, the flocci adhering on all sides to the peridium and forming distinct veins in the central mass.
The species Scleroderma vulgare is very common in woods, and has sometimes been mistaken for a form of Truffle. The plants are not very attractive, and the odor is rank. They are subsessile and irregular in shape, with a hard outer skin, the larger form of a yellowish or greenish brown hue, and covered with large warts or scales, the smaller very minutely warty, and of a darker brown hue. The internal mass is of a bluish-black hue, threaded through with white or greyish flocci. Spores dingy. The interior becomes pulverulent when the plant matures. This species has been eaten in its young state when cooked, but the flavor is by no means equal to that of the large puff-balls. It is sometimes attacked by a fungus larger than itself, called Boletus parasiticus, and this parasite is again attacked by a species of Hypomyces, one of the genera of the Pyrenomycetes, which grows in patches upon dead fungi.
Phalloideæ or Phallaceæ.