HYMENOGASTRACEAE 



Plants produced underground or on the surface, more or less globular or irregular. 

 Peridium connected intimately with the tramal plates which form the irregular, elon- 

 gated to more or less box-like chambers which in most cases are empty in youth, with or 

 without a distinct hymenium; at maturity partly or completely ruled with spores. 

 Basidia clavate with 1-8, more or less stipitate or sessile spores of a great variety of 

 size, shape and structure. Capillitium none; sterile base or column in some species 

 obvious, again practically absent. At maturity not dehiscing but rotting slowly, the 

 gleba not becoming powdery but (in our species at least) deliquescing inside to a dark 

 slimy mass or slowly undergoing a viscid disintegration from above downward. 



Four of the genera have been reported from the eastern United States and we are 

 adding Sclerogaster and Melanogaster. 



Literature 



For special literature on this family see Fischer, Harkness, Hesse, Massee, Tulasne, and Vittadini 

 as cited on p. 194. 



Cavara. Sur la Morphologie et la Biologie d'une Espece Nouvelle d'Hymetwgasler. Rev. Myc. 16: 



152, one plate. 1894. Also published in Italian. 

 Cavara. Nuov. Giorn. bot. ital. 7: 126. 1900. 

 Fischer. Mykologische Beitrage 25. Jugendstadien des Fruchtkorpers von Leucogaster. Naturf. 



Ges. Bern, Mitt. 1921: 301. 1922. 

 Lloyd. The Hymenogastraceae. Myc. Notes, p. 1138, figs. 2152-2176. 1922. 

 Zeller and Dodge. Arcangeliella, Gymnomyces, and Macowanites in North America. Ann. Mo. Bot. 



Gard. 6: 49, text figs. 1-3. 1919. 

 Zeller and Dodge. Leucogaster and Leucophlebs in North America. Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard. 11: 389, 



pi. 11. 1924. 



Key to the Genera 



Fruit bodies very small, white; gleba chambers very minute Sclerogaster (p. 25) 



Not as above 



Spores strongly angled and lobed Nigropogon (p. 37) 



Not as above 



Fruit bodies veined with superficial fibers; spores elliptic, smooth Rlrizopogon (p. 26) 



Fruit bodies attached by scattered fibrils; superficial veins short or absent; cavities box-like, 

 nearly or completely filled at maturity; spores smooth; basidia irregularly distrib- 

 uted, not forming a distinct hymenium Melanogaster (p. 38) 



Fruit bodies attached by one or a few fibrils, superficial veins present or absent; cavities 

 mostly polyhedral, when young filled with tissue which later gelatinizes and embeds 

 the spores; spores pale, usually spherical to oval, rough or pitted but surrounded by a 

 smooth, hyaline, gelatinous sheath; basidia irregularly distributed, not forming a dis- 

 tinct hymenium Leucogaster (p. 42) 



Fruit bodies without obvious vein-like fibers running over the surface and attached only at 

 one place 



Spores not spherical, in our species surrounded by a bladder Hymenogasler (p. 45) 



Spores spherical, reticulated or warted Octaviania (p. 47) 



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