3 o4 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



I I I 1 i 1 I I I 



Fig. 151. — Sphaerobolus stellatus. Vertical section through a fruit-body, 

 about 24 hours before the discharge of the glebal mass. The fruit-body 

 was developed from a layer of mycelium a which covered the substratum 

 (horse dung in a laboratory culture). The peridium of the fruit-body 

 consists of the following six layers : no. 1, a mycelial layer ; no. 2, a 

 gelatinous layer ; no. 3, a pseudoparenchymatous layer ; no. 4, a fibrous 

 layer made up of interwoven largely tangential hyphae ; no. 5, the 

 palisade layer, composed of palisade cells below and becoming pseudo- 

 parenchymatous and orange-coloured above in the region where the 

 peridium will break open ; and no. 6, a thin layer of orange-coloured 

 pseudoparenchyma surrounding the gleba and with it forming the glebal 

 mass. The gleba b still shows the partition-walls of its numerous 

 chambers which contain great numbers of spores and a lesser number 

 of gemmae and cystidia. At this stage the basidium -bodies have all 

 disappeared but the fat cells have not yet liberated the fatty matrix in 

 which the spores, gemmae, and cystidia are to become embedded. 

 Hyphae which conduct food-materials to the developing gleba can be 

 occupying passage-ways in the gelatinous layer at c and in the 



seen 



palisade layer at d. The fruit-body developed in such a way that its apex 

 came to face the incident rays of light, the direction of which is indicated 

 by the arrows. Drawn by A. H. R. Buller and Ruth Macrae. Magni- 

 fication, 38. 



