146 
he says, by having asci obliquely folded, or plicate, and therefore 
called Plicaria ; among them he places Peziza trachvearpa Currey, 
a species which I have found in great plenty, and of which I can 
assert that no such character exists, and I can affirm the same of 
several others of the set. Now when a student working by 
Fiickel’s book alights upon one of these species he sees a character 
“asci toti oblique transverse plicati,” and finding the asci really 
quite smooth, he is of course altogether thrown out. And how 
often this may happen is shown by the fact that he has consti- 
tuted in his Symbole mycologice 28 genera out of the single 
Genus Peziza as defined by Fries. Later writers have carried 
this system to a still greater extent. 
M. Boudier observes that in certain sections of Ascomycetes the 
asci open by lids, in others by slits, in others by a mere rupture. 
The first he calls operculate Discomycetes, the others inoperculate. 
The operculate Discomycetes, he says, have simple sporidia, i.c., 
without septa. In this he includes the Morels, ‘he Helvellas, the 
Verpas and certain sections of Peziz, as Aleuria, Humaria, many 
of the Lachnew, Ascobolus and the greater part of the genera 
which are derived from these sections. 
The second or inoperculate division is clearly separated from 
the first by the absence of a transverse or oblique slit at the 
extremity of the ascus, which bursts by the tension of the fruit as 
it becomes muture, the end of the ascus then often bending down 
like a collar, as in Peziza tuberosa, P. rapulum, P. echinophila. 
In this section the species have frequently sporidia, with a 
tendency to division, or are clearly septate, or may even become 
so at the time of germination. There are other characteristics of 
these inoperculatz in which section he includes Geoglossum, 
Mitrula, Leotia, Phialea, Helotium, Lachnella, Mollisia, and the 
genera belonging to them. M. Boudier thinks these observations 
of great use in the natural classification of this difficult family, 
but he observes that there are many species which require to be 
withdrawn from their present generical position among the oper- 
