322 DIVISION II. — COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 



It is probable, as Brefeld suggests, that these coils and funiculi, thus provided with 

 slimy mucilage and capable of being drawn out into strands, are contrivances for the 

 dissemination of the peridiola by animals and for furthering the germination of the 

 spores. That there is no spontaneous dehiscence of the peridiola is in favour of this 

 view, but the course of the events which would in that case come under consideration 

 is not yet known. 



(5) The development of the compound sporophorcs of the Phalloideae has been 

 studied exactly in Phallus ( P. impudicus and P. caninus) and Clathrua. They first appear 

 in Phallus (Fig. 153) as ellipsoid swellings about 1 mm. high on the mycelial strands, 

 and consist at first of a uniform compact weft containing air and formed of very 

 delicate (primordial) hyphae. In specimens of larger growth (Fig. 153 u, v) this is 

 differentiated into a dome-shaped central column rising vertically from the point of 

 insertion, a bell-shaped layer of felted gelatinous tissue enveloping the column, 

 gelatinous layer, and a white membrane, outer wall of the peridium, which sur- 

 rounds the gelatinous layer and passes at the point of insertion into the central 

 column. The two last named parts consist of primordial tissue. While the whole 

 sporophore as it increases in size becomes more narrowly ovoid in form, and the outer 

 wall and the gelatinous layer grow in circumference and thickness, though their 

 structure remains the same, the central column acquires the form of a globular head 

 supported on a cylindrical stipe. Its primordial tissue at first homogeneous is at the 

 same time differentiated into the gleba, the receptaculum of the gleba, which is peculiar 

 to the Phalloideae, and in the present case is a simple fusiform stipe, and a white 

 membrane surrounding the other two parts (Fig. 153 w, x). This membrane forms 

 the innermost layer of the wall of the peridium, which consists therefore of three 

 concentric, layers, the outer and inner white membranes which unite at the base, and 

 the much broader gelatinous layer lying between the two. The gleba lies in the upper 

 capitate portion of the central column in the form of a thick horizontal ring, which is 

 semicircular on the transverse section and is surrounded on the outside by the inner 

 wall of the peridium, while its inner surface rests on a conical axile portion of the 

 central column. This portion, which may be briefly termed the cone, passes through 

 the whole of the gleba up to the summit of the column. The structure of the gleba is 

 the same as in the Hymenogastreae and Lycoperdaceae but without coils ; its chambers 

 are very numerous and narrow, and the trama when somewhat advanced in its 

 development consists of soft gelatinous tissue with laminae which spring on one 

 side from the inner wall of the peridium, on the other from the cone. The outer- 

 most zone of the cone bordering on the gleba separates early in Phallus impudicus 

 from the inner tissue, forming a distinct layer, and becoming ultimately the free conical 

 ' pilcus ' which carries the gleba. In Ph. caninus this separation does not take place. 

 The stipe is at first a very narrowly, afterwards a more broadly fusiform body which 

 runs through the longitudinal axis of the entire central column from its apex to its 

 base. In its earliest condition it is a transparent band and is distinguished from the 

 white primordial tissue, which contains air, solely by the absence of air from its 

 interstices. As growth proceeds, the uniform hyphal tissue becomes differentiated 

 into an axile tissue-strand and a peripheral layer, the wall of the stipe. The latter 

 consists of laminae of a round-celled pseudo-parenchyma, which unite together, like 

 those of the gleba, to form one layer (I'll, caninus) or several layers (Ph. impudicus) 

 of closed chambers. The chambers are large, but so much compressed from above 

 downwards, that the breadth of their interior space is scarcely equal to the thickness 

 of their walls ; the walls themselves are much twisted and folded. The chambers 

 are filled with a soft gelatinous felt and the axile strand of the stipe is formed of a 

 like felt. The wall of the stipe at its upper extremity has only deep pit-like folds 

 in its surface, no chambers being formed in the interior. The stipe when once formed 

 increases greatly in size, the parenchyma of its wall enlarging by simple expansion 

 of its cells from the moment that it is distinctly differentiated. The growth of the 



