201 



and naked ; but in the more advanced state these ovate cells 

 present, at their summit, little, nearly sessile, spheres varying in 

 number from two to six. These bodies gradually increase, and 

 may soon be known as spores by their colour, and the asperities on 

 their surface. The sporangiola, together with their contents, are 

 soon converted into a dusty mass, and escape through any aperture 

 caused by the disintegration of the common peridium or envelope. 

 The various stages of growth may be observed in a single individual, 

 as the sporangiola do not ripen simultaneously in each." Tulasne 

 has a different species in view from that of Corda. The former 

 describes P. crassipes, the latter, P. acaule, which may account for 

 some differences in their descriptions, but in all probability Tulasne 

 is more correct as regards the mode of development of the spores, 

 •which accords better with what has been seen in the other plants of 

 the order. M. Tulasne observes that his views of the fruit 

 formation in Polysaccum, if correct, show a near relationship 

 between it and Scleroderma. In both genera the spores are formed 

 almost sessile, on cells similarly enlarged, but the threads to which 

 the basidia pertain are different in appearance and consistence ; in 

 Scleroderma the septa never acquire the same solidity as in Poly- 

 saccum, but are merely flocculent, and the fertile tissue they 

 envelope never acquires a free condition. 



Genus 69. Cenococcum.* Fr. 

 Peridium naked, thick, carbonaceous, indehiscent, at length hollow, 



with the walls dotted with the dust-like spores. 



1. Cenococcum geophilum, Fr. Sow., t. 270. Cda. Icones, iii., 

 18, t. iii., fig. 48. Stapleton, near Bristol. In peaty ground in 

 ■woods. No one has seen the genesis of the fruit, nor perhaps any 

 true fruit ; its situation in the system is therefore doubtful. 



Order X. Nidulariacei. 

 Sphores produced on sporophores compacted into one or more 



globose or disciform bodies, contained within a distinct peridium. 



According to the arrangement adopted in the " Outlines of 

 British Fungology, the order Myxogastres should come here, but 



* Cenococcum, from cenos, empty, and coccus, a berry. 



