ORDER SPHAEROBOLALES 



549 



Fig. 181. Nidulariales, Family Nidulariaceae. (A, B) Cyathus stercoreus (Schw.) 

 DeToni. (A) Section through wall of mature peridiole. (B) Basidia with their sessile 

 basidiospores. (C) Crucihulum vulgare Tul.; vertical section through a portion of 

 immature spore fruit. (A, B, courtesy, Coker and Couch: The Gasteromycetes of the 

 Eastern United States and Canada, Chapel Hill, Univ. North Carolina Press. C, after 

 Sachs: Botan. Ztg., 13(48) :833-845; (49):849-861.) 



up to a centimeter in height and funnel-formed or almost spherical, with 

 a flattened top. The peridium on this flattened upper portion ruptures 

 and exposes the peridioles lying like eggs in a nest, whence the common 

 name of the fungi. B. O. Dodge (1941) reports that they are discharged 

 from the spore fruit at maturity, in some cases to a height of 3 or 4 meters. 

 In forms with a funiculus (e.g., Cyathus) the latter remains attached to 

 the peridiole when it is discharged and, being sticky, attaches it to various 

 objects with which it may come in contact. Germination of the basidio- 

 spores occurs within the peridiole from whose outer surface numerous 

 germ tubes emerge in all directions. According to Martin (1927), in the 

 development of the peridiole the basidia collapse while the spores are not 

 yet mature or fully grown. The spores are then nourished by a weft of 

 hyphae surrounding each spore, much as occurs in some species of Sclero- 

 derma. (Figs. 180 and 181.) 



Order Sphaerobolales. This order, included in the preceding one by 

 many mycologists, has but one family, the Sphaerobolaceae. In the two 

 genera Sphaeroholus and Nidulariopsis, the peridium has three or more 

 rather thick layers, the middle one of which is lacking in the apical region 



