CHAPTER V.— COMPARATIVE REVIEW. — BASIDIOMYCETES. 337 



and observed in a few days the first beginnings of a mycelium make their appearance 

 exactly on the spots which had been sown, and on the ninth day the first commence- 

 ments of the compound spoixtphores, which reached their normal development and 

 maturity between that and the twentieth day. But even here the possibility of 

 parasitism is not absolutely excluded. 



A notice of Sautermeister * to the effect that Exidia recisa may also have 

 ascocarps in old and shrivelled compound sporophores has never been confirmed, and 

 must have been founded on the settlement of a species of Ascomycete in old plants 

 belonging to the Tremellineae. 



Section XCIV. If we cast a glance backward at sections LXXIV to XCIII, we 

 shall see that we must assume a direct affinity or phylogenetic connection throughout the 

 whole assemblage of the Basidiomycetes. The course of development is the same in 

 its main features wherever it has been ascertained. The organs which have been desig- 

 nated by the same name in the foregoing account, especially the basidia and basidio- 

 spores, must from the data before us be regarded as strictly homologous. The Hymeno- 

 mycetes on the one side and the Gastromycetes on the other are evidently two 

 closely connected series. They are in general very different from one another, and 

 the difference lies chiefly in their compound sporophores, but they sometimes also 

 approach each other very nearly. Gautieria, and we may say also some forms of 

 Secotium, are evident connecting links between the groups of the Hymenogastreae 

 and Polyporeae. Gautieria which has all the characters of the Hymenogastreae, 

 but has its chambers open and covered with no peridium, may be compared 

 to a curled Merulius ; the question naturally arises, whether the interior chambers 

 have been formed by differentiation or in some way directly corresponding to this 

 comparison. 



If we could attribute a decisive value to the habit of the plants, we should dwell 

 upon the great resemblance between the stalked Hymenogastreae, like Secotium 

 erythrocephalum (Fig. 144) and a veiled Boletus, or still more perhaps that of 

 Polyplocium 2 to the same species, though Polyplocium is too little known in its 

 earlier states. But among the Polyporeae there is a remarkable form Polyporus 

 volvatus, Pk., the Polyporus obvallatus of Berk, and Cook 3 , which considered by 

 itself must be placed with or close to the Hymenogastreae. Its sporophore, which 

 lives in the bark of trees, is a hollow spherical body flattened at the poles and about 

 the size of a hazel-nut, with a thick closed wall of leathery texture ; its interior surface 

 is covered with the hymenium of a Polyporus on the part next the substratum and 

 is sterile on the opposite side. 



That all the groups of the Gastromycetes converge towards the Hymenogastreae 

 directly or indirectly through the Lycoperdaceae, and that they may therefore be de- 

 duced phylogenetically from the Hymenogastreae, is a necessary conclusion from the 

 account which has here been given of them. Corda and Tulasne long since drew 

 attention to this connection, and to the affinity between the Hymenogastreae and 

 the Hymenomycetes which has been brought into prominence in the preceding 

 pages. 



1 Bot. Ztg. 1876, p. 819. 



2 See Berkeley in Hooker's Journ. II. 201, and Corda, Icon. VI. 

 '■■ Ellis, North American Fungi, No, 307, 



14] " 



