Chapter IX 

 PHYLUM INOPHYTA 



Phylum 5. INOPHYTA Haeckel 



Order Fungi L. Sp. PI. 1 1 7 1 (1 753 ) . 



Hysterophyta Link, 1808. 



Classes Fungi and Lichencs Bartling Ord. Nat. 4 (1830). 



Regnum Mycetoideum Fries Syst. Myc. 1: Ivi (1832). 



Class Lichenes and section Hysterophyta with class Fungi Endlicher Gen. PI. 11, 

 16 (1836). 



Stamm Inophyta Haeckel Gen. Morph. 2: xxxvi (1866). 



Subdivision Fungi Engler and Prantl Nat. Pflanzenfam. II Teil: 1 (1889). 



Division Eumycetes Engler Syllab. ed. 3: 25 (1903). 



Phylum Carpomyceteae Bessey in Univ. Nebraska Studies 7: 249 (1907). 



Stamm Mycophyta Pascher in Beih. bot. Centralbl. 48, Abt. 2: 330 ( 1931 ). 



Kingdom Mycetalia Conard Plants of Iowa iv (1939). 



Phylum Eumycophyta Tippo in Chron. Bot. 7: 205 (1942). 



Parasites and saprophytes without flagellate stages, the bodies filamentous, the 

 w;,lls containing no cellulose. 



This group represents the conventional division or subdivision Fungi of the 

 kingdom of plants, excluding, of course, the bacteria, Oomycetes, chytrids, and 

 Mycetozoa. The name Fungi, used as a scientific name, is properly to be applied, 

 by authority of Linnaeus, to an order. Agaricus campestris L. will be recognized 

 as the standard species of the phylum and of the order. 



Those who study Inophyta are accustomed to use, for soma and filament respec- 

 tively, the terms mycelium and hypha. The walls of the hyphae are believed to consist 

 of pectic material. A small percentage of chitin is usually present (Schmidt, 1936); 

 cellulose is totally absent (Thomas, 1928; Nabel, 1939; Castle, 1945). The organism 

 Basidiobolus, having hyphae walled with cellulose, is tentatively retained among 

 Inophyta as an exception. 



The multiplication and dissemination of those organisms is by spores, of various 

 types, scattered in the air. Most Inophyta produce two or more kinds of spores, some 

 of them asexually, others as features of a sexual cycle. Spores produced within cases 

 are called endospores, and the cases sporangia. Other spores are produced externally, 

 commonly by constriction of the ends of hyphae. Spores thus produced are called 

 conidia, and the hyphae or other structures which bear them, conidiophores. Spores 

 are commonly produced not directly on the mycelium but on macroscopic structures 

 of various types, all of which may be called by the familiar term fruit. The common 

 mushroom as we see it is a fruit; it is the temporary spore-producing structure of 

 an organism whose soma consists of filaments living saprophytically in the soil 

 below. 



It is expedient to mention at this point the growths called lichens, which are 

 traditionally treated as a taxonomic group, either subordinate to Fungi or of the 

 same rank. Lichens are gelatinous or thallose growths, usually of an impure green 

 color, common everywhere, terrestrial or epiphytic, as on stones, trees, or fence 

 posts. The microscope, in the hands of de Bary and others, showed that they consist 

 of cells of two types, colorless filaments like those of Inophyta, and pigmented 



