474 



COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGY OF FUNGI 



differentiated as a single layer of pseudoparenchyma, forming warts 

 which disappear at maturity of the fructification. The endoperidium 

 also of a single layer begins as radial, loosely-woven, thin-walled hyphae. 

 As it matures, thick-walled hyphae, similar to the capillitium, replace 

 the early tissue, finally forming a compact, persistent tissue. The 

 gleba forms a number of large, subspherical primary cavities which are 

 later cut up into numerous secondary ones by growth of the tramal 

 plates (Cunningham, 1927). 



During the maturing of the spores, the hyphae in the interior of the 

 peridium become loose at the top of the fructification and short geniculate ; 

 the distinction between outer and inner peridium, Pa and Pi, disappears, 

 the top is ruptured as a mouth, and the 

 spores, penetrated by capillitium, becomes 

 a dusty mass. 



Several species of Lycoperdaceae are 

 palatable when young, as long as the gleba 

 is white, as Lycoperdon gemmatum, Calvatia ^ 

 caelata and C. maxima. The fructifica- 

 tions of the latter attain the diameter of 



Fig. 301. — Broomeia congregata. A. Portion of stroma with fructifications, 

 of stipitate stroma. {After Berkeley and Murray.) 



B. Section 



more than half a meter. According to Buller (1909, 1924), a specimen 

 of normal size contains 7,500 billion spores, approximately as many as 

 4,000 average fructifications of Psalliota campestris. Thus, this is the 

 most fruitful organism known. Were these spores all to germinate 

 and each form a fructification the size of the parent and if all the spores 

 of these were to form fructifications, there would be produced a fungus 

 mass 800 times the size of our planet. 



In two further genera, Diplocystis and Broomeia (Fig. 301), found 

 in South Africa and the West Indies, there are joined together on a 

 stroma 17 by 15 cm. over 900 fructifications (Pole-Evans and Bottomley, 

 1918); each is surrounded by its own two-layered peridium which at 

 maturity tears stellately at the mouth. Unfortunately, the development 



