STRUCTURE OF THE GILL-rLATES OF AGARICS. 43 



basidium, normal basidium, hypertrophied basidiam, these are tlie 

 three elements which form the hymenium. Does itdevelope either 



outside the hymenium, or on the hymenium, at a time or in a part 

 which has not yet been discovered, organs which yield pollen, 

 spermatia, antherozoids, or any other fecundating agent ? This is 

 what remains to be discovered. 



The mode of the insertion of the basidium, or of the different 

 organs of the hymenium upon the sub-jacent tissues, conforms to 

 two types ; but these differences are less marked in the hymenium 

 of the Basidiospores than in that of the Thecaspores. In these last 

 it is easy to recognise these two types, which present themselves 

 thus. In the first, and that which appears to us the most dis- 

 tributed, the theca, attenuated at its base, appears to have, when it 

 has been isolated, a little pediform swelling, or, if you please, an 

 extremity slightly recurved, provided w 7 ith a claw, recalling some- 

 what the form of the crutch-shaped cells of M. H. Hoffman. It is 

 by this little swelling that the theca is implanted upon the sub- 

 hymenial cell. The insertions of this form offer, in section, a 

 certain regularity. In the second type the theca is again attenuated 

 at the base, but it gives place directly to an elongated,* line, 

 tubular cell which loses itself in the cellulous parenchyma of the 

 Pi ziza. There is then, at the base of the hymenium, a complica- 

 tion which does not present at all the same aspect as the sub- 

 hymenial tissue of the other Pezizas. The paraphyses always 

 conform to the same mode of insertion as the thecal to which they 

 are adjacent, and their homology thus receives from it a confirma- 

 tion. 



FUCKEL'S CLASSIFICATION OF THE SPH.EMACEI. 



By Charles B. Plowright. 



Many attempts have been made to classify the various forms 

 which are included in this extensive order ; since the genus, from 

 which it takes its name was proposed by Haller, more than a 

 century ago. It is not intended historically to enumerate any of 

 these, but it should be borne in mind, that each successive author 

 would naturally tend to adopt, or at any rate be influenced by, 

 those suggestions of his predecessors, the convenience of which 

 experience had demonstrated. We, in England, use almost ex- 

 clusively the system proposed by Fries, somewhat modified ; and so 

 familiar have we all become with it, that many years will probably 

 elapse before we shall desire to change it. Our Continental 

 brethren, however, have of late years introduced a multitude of 

 new genera, many of which have been extensively adopted, and it 

 may possibly not be uninteresting to compare some of the more im- 

 portant of these with our own. With this in view it is proposed 



# At least exteriorly, for there is always an internal wall of separation. 



