OEDER LYCOPERDALES 



551 



Fig. 182. Lycoperdales, Family Lycoperdaceae. Lycoperdon pyriforme Pers. (Courtesy, 



F. C. Strong.) 



unipileate modification of the coralloid type of development needs careful 

 study of the very early stages. 



Family Lycoperdaceae. The spore fruits are external from the first 

 or may be shallowly subterranean when young, becoming external at 

 maturity. They consist of a flexible peridium of two or three well-marked 

 layers enclosing the gleba. The basidia are ovoid with short or long sterig- 

 mata and four to eight basidiospores. After the spores are mature the 

 basidia and the tramal tissues dissolve, except for the brown, thick-walled 

 capillitial threads. As the spore fruit enlarges the outer peridium ruptures 

 in various ways, scaling off in granules or larger pieces. The inner peridium 

 may also break up in pieces or more often forms one or more ostioles, usu- 

 ally in the apical region. As wind or firmer objects strike the spore fruit 

 the spores are puffed out through these ostioles. The spore fruits vary 

 from a few milhmeters in diameter up to 1.6 m. in length, 1.35 m. in width 

 and 24 cm. in height, in the case of a specimen of Calvatia gigantea (Batsch 

 ex Pers.) Lloyd, collected in New York State many years ago and reported 

 by C. E. Bessey (1884). Such a puffball would produce approximately 



