CHAPTER V. — COMPARATIVE REVIEW. — BASIDIOMYCETES. 



335 



on all specimens. We can arrive at no certainty in the matter without a complete 

 account of their development and especially of their germination. 



Corda * has described a Fungus growing on old pine-wood under the name of 

 Ptychogaster albus, a round body of the size of a hazel-nut or even much larger, which 

 has the appearance of a Lycoperdon and is white when young, but when the spores 

 are ripe is of the colour of a brown clay. Its structure, however, is not that of a 

 Lycoperdon. It consists at first of a loose soft weft of hyphae, which radiate for the 

 most part from a more dense basal portion, their free sterile extremities terminating 

 in the periphery. The hyphae have many transverse septa and clamp-connections 

 at the septa. The spores are formed in the interior on the hooked or spirally twisted 

 ends of the branches of the hyphae ; these branches are converted into mucilage when 

 the spores are developed and disappear, so that the brown spore-dust lies among the 

 decaying remains of the hyphae. According to Tulasne - the spores are formed in 

 large numbers as round lateral protuberances on the filaments and in no fixed order ; 

 according to Cornu 3 the twisted hyphae break up each into a single row of spores. 

 Tulasne compares this Fungus to Pilacre Petersii, Berk, et Br. and Onygena faginea, 

 Fr. and suspects it to be a 

 gonidial form of an Ascomycete, 

 mentioning especially Poronia. 

 E. Fries 4 on the contrary con- 

 siders Ptychogaster to be a mon- 

 strous product of Polyporus 

 borealis, and Cornu thinks this 

 probable on account of the clamp- 

 connections which are so common 

 in the Hymenomycetes. F. Lud- 

 wig 5 has in fact recently found 

 specimens of Ptychogaster which 

 had a hymenium of Polyporus on 

 the under side, the side towards 

 the substratum. The elements of 

 the hymenium appeared to spring 

 directly from those of the Ptycho- 

 gaster, and no Similar form Of FIG. 162. Nyctalis asterophora, Fr. A a young specimen, in vertical 

 PolvPOrUS WaS found in the vi- section, and in transmitted light ; m hymenophorum, s layer of chlamydo- 

 . . ^ . spores, h primordium of hymenium. b hypha with half-ripe chlamydospores. 

 Cimty. No more IS Stated, and c a ripe chlamydospore. A slightly magnified, * and c magn. 390 times. 



careful artificial cultivation only 



can show whether the two forms really belong to the same species, which Ludwig 

 names Polyporus Ptychogaster, or whether it is a case of cohabitation of two 

 species, or parasitism. 



The ' conidia ' reported by Richon 6 in Hydnum Erinaceus and Corticium dubiurn 

 require more thorough investigation in all points. 



I have elsewhere 7 represented the occurrence of two kinds of spores in the 

 sporophores of Fries' Nyctalis asterophora as belonging to the cases which we are 

 considering here. The sporophores of this Fungus are developed in the same way 

 as in the gymnocarpous Agaricineae. The loose air-containing weft of delicate 



A 



1 Icon. II, p. 23. 



2 Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 5, IV, p. 290, and XV, p. 22S, t. 12. 



3 Bull. Soc. bot. de France, XXIII, p. 362. 



4 Summa Veg. Scand. p. 564. 



5 Zeitschr. f. d. gesammten Naturwiss. 53 (1880), p. 424, tt. 13, 14. 



6 Bull. Soc. bot. de France, 1881, p. 180. 



7 Bot. Ztg. 1859, P- 385- 



