In the Clavarei, the whole plant consists of solid fleshy masses without 

 any stem of a distinct substance, sometimes club-shaped, sometimes 

 branched with the hymenium smoothly covering the entire surface, never 

 inrrustii)<4- or coriaceous. 



In the Thclephorei, the lower surface of the cap presents neither gills, 

 pores, nor spines, but instead the hymenium covers an uneven or slightly 

 wrinkled surface, partially striate, sometimes obscurely papillose. The 

 plants of this order assume a great variety of shape, from that of a per- 

 fect cup with a central stem to an irregularly and much branched frond. 

 They are generally dry and tough. Very few are recommended as edible. 

 Prof. Peck says of this order that probably no edible species will be found 

 in any of its genera outside of the genus Craterellus. 



In the order Tremelliui we have a great departure from the character 

 of the substance, external appearance, and internal structure of the other 

 orders of the Hymenomycetes. The substance is gelatinous ; the form 

 is lobed, folded, or convolute, often resembling the brain of some animal. 

 It is uniformly composed throughout of a colorless mucilage, with no ap- 

 preciable texture, in which are distributed very fine, diversely branched, 

 and anastomosing filaments. Towards the surface the ultimate branches 

 of this filameutose network give birth to globular cells, both at their 

 summits and laterally, which attain a comparatively large size. These 

 cells are filled with a protoplasm, to which the plant owes its color. The 

 fertile threads are not compacted into a true hymenium. 



Representative types of the above-described orders of the Hymenomy- 

 cetes are shown in Plate B. The various genera, and species of these 

 orders, will be described more in detail in connection with the species 

 illustrated. 



CLASSIFICATION. 



Owing to the fact that botanists of various countries, writing in diverse 

 languages, have for more than a century been engaged in describing the 

 fungi of their respective countries, with their work frequently unknown 

 to one another, it is not surprising that there has been constant revision, 

 or that many changes have been made in the way of classification and 

 nomenclature which to the amateur student are often confusing. 



The classification by the pioneer mycologist, Elias Fries, as presented 

 in his several works on fungi, ignored all microscopical characters, and 

 Saccardo's classification, as presented in his Sylloge F'uiigoruni, was the 

 first complete system offered in its place. 



Saccardo, in 1882, commenced his Sylloge, of which not less than 

 twelve volumes have been published. In Saccardo's system of clas- 

 sification the six orders of the Hymenomycetes are not essentially dif- 

 ferent in their arrangement from that of Fries, although Saccardo has 

 raised all the subgenera of Agaricus to the rank of genera, and then 

 altered their sequence so as to bring them into four sections, distinguished 

 by the color of their spores. Having raised the old subgenera of Fries 

 to generic rank, Saccardo found it necessary to limit the application of 



