118 MR. GEORGE MASSEE ON THE THELEPHORES. 
which I am perfectly aware will be ridiculed by systematists that 
are supersaturated with what De Bary has happily termed tradi- 
tional ideas as to affinity; nevertheless, while grateful for the 
laborious work conscientiously done by the pioneers of mycology, 
I doubt whether a more solid argument than that of early con- 
ceptions—not based on morphology—can be brought to bear 
against the above statement. 
- The species included in Asterostroma externally agree with 
the genus Corticium, and up to the present have been included 
in that genus, and in all probability will be retained there by 
those mycologists who consider analogy as being of more im- 
portance than homology. My object in entering into the above 
details must not be interpreted as suggesting that Asterostroma 
is most nearly allied to Bovista; but to show that structures 
characteristic of the most widely separated groups ofthe Basidio- 
mycetes are indicated in the Thelephorew, which must be consi- 
dered as the starting-point of the entire group, and at the same 
time to show that the general morphological relationship between 
Hymenomycetes and Gastromycetes is nearer than the traditional 
idea concerning the two groups. 
Hymenial appendages other than basidia are more numerous 
and varied in structure in the order under consideration than in 
any other included in the Basidiomycetes. In Veluticeps the 
hymenium presents a velvety appearance due to the presence of 
erect solitary or fasciculate thin-walled septate hairs, not at all 
differentiated from hyphe, forming the subiculum, of which they 
are direct continuations. 
Much more highly developed organs are met with in the genus 
Peniophora, where the hymenium is densely setulose, due to the 
presence of numerous comparatively stout projecting cells called 
metuloids by Cooke*. These cells exactly agree in origin, posi- 
tion, and form with the bodies known as cystidia, and will in 
future be spoken of as such. In shape they are always fusi- 
form; but the widest portion is not always equidistant from 
the two ends; and when this is the case, is always nearest to 
the base. Cystidia are always colourless, thin-walled, and vary 
in size in different, and also to some extent in the same, spe- 
cies, in the latter case depending probably on relative age. 
In Peniophora inconspicua (Pl. XLVII. fig. 14) 120 x 30 p is not 
* Grevillea, vol. viii. p. 17. 
