556 



CLASS BASIDIOMYCETEAE 



Fig. 186. Lycoperdales, Family Tulostomataceae. Tulostoma campestre Morgan. 



opsis) and in Astraeus. For this reason the family is sometimes removed 

 from the Order Lycoperdales. 



The stipe may be a rather broad and relatively short one or tall and 

 slender. In Tulostoma the rounded main body of the spore fruit reaches its 

 full size before a small mass of tissue at its base, and within the exoperid- 

 ium, begins its rapid elongation to become the stipe. The exoperidium 

 may remain as a fragmentary cup at its base and shred off from the main 

 portion of the body. The capillitium is abundant and grows fast to the 

 peridium. The basidia bear the spores, four in number, on short sterig- 

 mata laterally. This led von Tavel (1892) to suggest the origin of this 

 genus from Phleogena in the Auriculariales, with the loss of the cross septa 

 in the basidia of the latter. 



Queletia mirabilis Fr., the only species of this genus, has been found in 

 France, England, and the United States, but appears to be rare. Like 

 Tulostoma its spore fruits develop underground. Only as the gleba ap- 

 proaches the spore-forming stage does the base start to elongate, breaking 

 through the peridium and forming a stout stipe 8 to 15 cm. tall and 3 to 

 4 cm. thick, bearing a rounded sporocarp 3 to 7 cm. in diameter. There is 

 a sharp line of distinction between the concave base of the latter and the 

 rounded apex of the stipe. The gleba is similar to that of Tulostoma, with 

 no trace of hymenial cavities at maturity. The 1 to 4 (mostly 3) basidio- 

 spores are terminal and lateral as in that genus. Normally the head breaks 

 away from the stipe and is blown about in the wind, scattering its spores, 

 but if the attachment is too firm the stipe shreds away and thus exposes 

 the under side of the powdery gleba which consists only of spores and 

 capillitium. The genus Calostoma was placed by Fischer (1933) in the 

 Family Calostomataceae along with Astraeus, with which it has little in 

 agreement except the plectobasidial type of gleba. In Calostoma the stipe 



