326 



COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGY OF FUNGI 



change. The young stages of their lower forms connect directly to the 

 higher forms of both these families, which lack sclerotia and generally are 

 tough, fleshy or leathery, but gelatinous in some Cudonieae, as in the 

 Bulgariaceae. Since there appears a strong epinastic growth of the top 

 of the hypothecium, however, the ascus hymenia are not longer formed 

 in the interior of patelliform or cyathiform fructifications but on the 

 convex exterior of clavate fructifications. 



This may be best followed in a very simple example, Roesleria pallida 

 (Calicium pallidum) on the roots of the Vine. Its fructification consists 

 of a coremial hyphal tuft which is differentiated into a stipe and a flat 



Fig. 216. — Calicium pallidum (Roesleria pallida). 

 Portion of hymenium showing asci and paraphyses. 

 1912.) 



1. Section of fructifications. 2. 

 (1 X 8; 2 X 320; after Arnaud, 



discoid head (Fig. 216, 1). If we imagine this disc curved like an urn, 

 as it is in Caliciopsis, a related genus, we have before us a true apothecium 

 of about the height of an Agyrieae-Pattelariaceae group. If we imagine 

 the hypothecium more strongly developed, so that the subhymenial 

 layer arches convexly, we have one of the simplest Geoglossaceous 

 fructifications represented in Fig. 216. The extremely primitive position 

 of Roesleria pallida is further shown by the fact that its asci mature at 

 different times, so that while the old asci discharge first uni- then bicellu- 

 lar ascospores, the hymenia continually form new asci. 



In the higher Geoglossaceae this arching of the hypothecial tip goes 

 still further and leads to a clavate outline of the fructification as shown in 

 Fig. 217 for Gloeoglosswn glutinosum; in it the whole club is fertile, i.e., 

 covered by an ascus hymenium. At times, as in G. difforme, this hyme- 

 nium may extend over the whole stipe. 



