State during the spring of the year, subsisted
entirely for five days on Morels which they collected.

The specimen represented in Plate C, Fig. 1, is figured from a Morchella
_esculenta_ which grew in the vicinity of Falls Church, Va., less than
ten miles from the District of Columbia. The reports which I have
received from correspondents in twenty States show that the Morel is not
so rare in this country as was formerly supposed. The advantages which
this mushroom possesses over some others are (1) the readiness with
which it can be distinguished, (2) its keeping qualities, and (3) its
agreeable taste. It is easily dried, and in that condition can be kept a
long time without losing its flavor. Though it has not the rich flavor
of the common field mushroom, it is very palatable when cooked, and when
dried it is often used in soups. It is very generally esteemed as an
esculent among mycophagists.

Fig. 2 represents the sporidia enclosed in the ascus, or spore sack,
with accompanying paraphyses.

FIG. 3. =Gyromitra= _esculenta_ Fries. "_Esculent Gyromitra_."

_Genus Gyromitra_ Fries. This genus contains very few species, but all
are considered edible, though differing somewhat in flavor and
digestibility. Five or six species are figured by Cooke. Peck speaks of
several species found in New York. One of these, G. curtipes Fries, is
also figured by Cooke as found in North Carolina. This species Cooke
regards as equal in flavor to G. esculenta. G. esculenta has a rounded,
inflated cap, irregularly lobed and hollow, smooth and brittle in
texture, reddish brown. It falls over the stem in heavy convolutions,
touching it at various points. The stem is stout, stuffed, at length
hollow, whitish or cinereous; spores elliptical with two nuclei,
yellowish, translucent. The plant is usually from two to four inches in
height, but larger specimens are found.

Fig. 4 represents the spore sack with enclosed sporidia.

Mr. Charles L. Fox, of Portland, Maine, records the Gyromitra
_esculenta_, of which he sent me a very good specimen last spring, as
quite abundant during May in the open woods near the city named.
Speaking of this species, he says: "From the point of view of their
edibility, we have classed them under two heads--the light and the dark
varieties. These differ in the locality in which they are found, in
their color and in the convolutions of their surface. Both grow large.

"The _Light Gyromitra_ is the more easi