CHAPTER V. — COMPARATIVE REVIEW. — GASTROMYCETES. 



3 l 9 



Batarrea. At any rate the Fungus described by Corda under the name of Cauloglossum 

 in the place cited is very near Podaxon, and must be placed with that genus among 

 the Lycoperdaceae. It is plain, from the remarks recently made above on the Secotieae, 

 that their arrangement in one special group along with Podaxon is founded only on 

 superficial resemblances and is not tenable, and that the group of Podaxineae as hitherto 

 constituted must be broken up. 



4. The ripe compound sporophores of the larger Nidularieae were described by 

 earlier observers as delicate open cups about 1 cm. in diameter containing usually 

 10-20 lenticular seed-like bodies. The cup is now known as the peridium, and 

 the seed-like bodies as peridiola or sporangia ; the latter should be called the 

 chambers of the gleba if our present terminology is strictly adhered to. The structure 

 and development of these Fungi have been investigated by J. Schmitz, Tulasne, Sachs, 

 Eidam, and Brefeld. Crueibulum vulgare, Tul. may be taken as an example of the 

 group, and the description of it will be founded in the main on the works of Sachs and 



W r J' 





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p a p 



FIG. 150. Crueibulum vulgare. A — C median 

 longitudinal section through ripening sporophores ; suc- 

 cessive stages of development according to the letters. 

 D sporophore just ripe in which the epiphragm is be- 

 ginning to disappear, seen from without. A — C slightly 

 magnified, D natural size. 



FIG. 151. Crueibulum -vulgare. Thin median section through 

 the upper part of a sporophore of about the same age as B in Fig. 

 150, more highly magnified and seen in transmitted light, the dark 

 parts containing air; ap outer, ip inner layer of the wall of the peri- 

 dium, rf and <z/"its hairs, ;: funiculus, t the layer which forms a sheath 

 round it and belongs to a peridiolum which is divided through the 

 middle. After Sachs. 



Brefeld. The first beginnings of the compound sporophores are small spherical bodies 

 produced by the interweaving of copiously branched mycelial hyphae. The weft of 

 primordial hyphae thus formed is at first close and colourless and contains air ; but the 

 branches at the periphery soon develope into stout hairs with tooth-like branches and 

 brown membranes, which cover the surface as a brown felt. With this covering 

 the small sphere grows by constant formation of new elements in the interior of the 

 hyphal weft into a thick cylindrical or obconical body about 6 mm. in height. The 

 differentiation into the parts which are found at maturity begins before the body has 

 reached half its ultimate size and advances with the general growth. The first 

 separation is seen in the internal primordial tissue which is originally uniformly white in 

 consequence of the air contained in it, in other words in the opaque primordial tissue, 

 and the result is that a zone between the periphery and the middle becomes a gelatinous 

 felted tissue free from air and therefore transparent. The differentiation of this zone 

 begins above the base of the body ; the zone itself, which follows the form of the 

 surface of the body, is concave upwards and thickest in the middle, thinning out 



