CLASSIFICATION. 69 



In the former, the peridium is either single or double, oc- 

 casionally borne on a stem, but usually sessile. In Greasier, 

 the " starry puff-balls," the outer peridium divides into 

 several lobes, which fall back in a stellate manner, and expose 

 the inner peridium, like a ball in the centre. In Polysaccum, 

 the interior is divided into numerous 

 cells, filled with secondary peridia. The 

 mode of spore-production has already 

 been alluded to in our remarks on Lyco- 

 perdon. All the species are large, as 

 compared with those of the following 

 sub-family, and one species of Lycoper- 

 don attains an enormous size. One 

 specimen recorded in the " Gardener's 

 Chronicle " was three feet four inches 

 ss.-Scierodenna vuigare, FT. in c i rcum f ere nce, and weighed nearly 

 ten pounds. In the filyxogastres, the early stage has been the 

 subject of much controversy. The gelatinous condition presents 

 phenomena so unlike anything previously recorded in plants, 

 that one learned professor* did not hesitate to propose their 

 exclusion from the vegetable, and recognition in the animal, 

 kingdom as associates of the Gregarines. When mature, the 

 spores and threads so much resemble those of the Trichoyastres, 

 and the little plants themselves are so veritably miniature puff- 

 balls, that the theory of their animal nature did not meet with 

 a ready acceptance, and is now virtually abandoned. The cha- 

 racters of the family we have thus briefly reviewed are tersely 

 stated, as 



Hymenium more or less permanently concealed, consisting in 

 most cases of closely -packed cells, of which the fertile ones bear 

 naked spores on distinct spicules, exposed only by the rupture or 

 decay of the investing coat or peridium = GASTEROMYCETES. 



We come now to the second section of the Sporifera, in 

 which no definite hymeniura is present. And here we find 

 also two families, in one of which the dusty spores are the 



* De Bary, A., "Des Myxomycetes," in "Ann. des Sci. Nat." 4 mc ser. xi. 

 p. 153 ; " Bot. Zeit." xvi. p. 357. 



