Plant dingy white or brownish yellow; pear-shaped, or obovate pyriforme, sometimes approaching L. gemmatum in size and shape, but easily distinguished from that species by the surface features of the peridium and the internal hyphae. The persistent warts which cover the surface of the peridium are so minute as to appear to the naked eye like scales. In some instances the peridium is almost smooth, and sometimes cracks in areas, inner peridium thin and tough. The hyphae are thicker than the spores and branched, continuous with the slightly cellular base, and forming a columella inside the peridium. Spores greenish-yellow, then brownish-olive, smooth and globose. The short stem-like base of the plant terminates in fiber-like rootlets, creeping under the soil and branching, thus attaching large clusters of the young plants together. They are often found in quantity on the mossy trunks of fallen trees. FIG. 6.--=Lycoperdon giganteum= Batsch. "_Giant Puff-Ball_." The Giant Puff-Ball, so generally neglected, is one of the most valuable of the edible mushrooms. It is readily distinguished from other puff-balls and allied fungi by its large size. It is subglobose in form, often flattened at the top and usually wider than deep. The peridium or rind is membranaceous, smooth, or very slightly floccose, and creamy white at first, turning to pale yellowish-brown when the plant is old. When young it is filled with a white, seemingly homogeneous fleshy substance of pleasant flavor. This substance changes, when mature, to an elastic, yellowish or olivaceous brown, cottony but dusty mass of filaments and spores. The peridium is very fragile above, cracking into areae in the mature plant and breaking up and falling away in fragments, thus allowing the dispersion of the spores. The capillitium and spores are at first greenish-yellow, turning to dingy olive. The plants vary in size, but average from ten to twenty inches in diameter. In the columns of the _Country Gentleman_ some years ago there appeared a description of a puff-ball of this species which weighed forty seven pounds and measured a little over eight feet in circumference. It was found in a low, moist corner of a public park. Specimens weighing from twenty to thirty pounds are recorded as being found in different parts of the country; but specimens of such large dimensions are unusual. This species is found in many parts of the United States. It is the L. _bovista_ of Linn. Sacc. A correspondent writes that he has found the giant puff-ball in great abundance growing on the Genessee Flats, Livingstone Co., New York. Another writes from Nebraska that it is quite abundant on the prairies there in summer. A third writes from Missouri, "Since the late rains we have had puff-balls in abundance, and find them delicious made into fritters."