ORDER LYCOPERDALBS 



553 



Fig. 183. Order Lycoperdales, Family Lycoperdaceae, Disciseda Candida (Schw.) 

 Lloyd {Catastoma circumscissum (B. & C.) Morgan). Spore fruits in various stages of 

 dehiscence. (After Morgan, from Fischer, in Engler und Prantl; Die Natiirlichen 

 Pflanzenfamilien, Zweite Auflage, vol. 7a, Leipzig, W. Engelmann.) 



sterigmata. The basidia are produced sympodially on branched hyphae of 

 a finely divided coralloid gleba, not on a hymenium clothing definite 

 cavities. He concluded that the genus should form the type of a family to 

 be named Lanopilaceae in the Sclerodermatales. Its abundant capillitium 

 and the position of the spores on the basidium would seem to indicate 

 possible relationship to Tiilostoma. 



Two genera, Broomeia and Diplocystis, from the warmer parts of the 

 world, are characterized by the production of their spore fruits crowded 

 side by side on a stroma, which is thick and often with a stout stalk in the 

 former and thin and saucer-shaped in the latter. A few other genera are 

 recognized. In the mountains in the western part of the United States 

 occurs Calhovista, described by Miss Morse (1935). It resembles Calvatia 

 sculpta (Hark.) Lloyd, but has a capillitium resembling that of Bovista. 

 Zeller (1044) segregated four genera from the Lycoperdaceae to form 

 the Mesophelliaceae. These are Radiigera, so far only found in the United 

 States, Ahstoma, from New Zealand, Australia, and California, Meso- 

 phellia, from Europe and Australia, and Castoreum, from Australia. The 

 distinction is based on a usually three-layered peridium which is indehis- 

 cent or rupturing irregularly at the apex. In this group the hymenial 

 cavities are not well defined. The basidia are borne in clusters on short 

 branches of radial hyphae. This seems to indicate a tendency toward the 

 basidial arrangement found in Phellorinia and Podaxis. 



Family Geastraceae. In most mycological works the genera included 

 in this family are placed in the Lycoperdaceae, but the author follows 

 Fischer (1933) in making the segregation. The chief distinction is that in 

 the latter the outer layer of the peridium lacks a fibrous layer and dis- 

 integrates at maturity, while in the Earthstars, as the Geastraceae are 

 called, the outer peridium does possess such a layer and splits stellately 

 from the top toward the base, spreading out in a star-like manner. The 



