548 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



when dry curve up over the endoperidium, but in moist weather bend 

 back and lever the Fungus free from the soil. The remarkable Stink- 

 horns are included in this order. The common species, IthyphaUus 

 impudicus, issues from the earth as a white ball. A little later the volva or 

 wrapper is ruptured and a tall cylindrical column of white spongy 

 substance issues from it. It is terminated above by the conical gleba, which 

 consists of honeycomb-like cells at first filled with an olive jelly in which 

 the spores are immersed, and which gives off an abominable and pena- 

 trabing odour of corruption. This odour attracts innumerable blow-flies, and 

 as the jelly is sweet they imbibe it greedily. The spores pass uninjured 

 through their digestive tract, and are thus widely dispersed. 



The Order Ascomyceteae is broken up into two large sub-orders the 



Discomycetese 

 and the Py- 

 re nomycetese. 

 tThe Discomy- 

 / ^^ cetes produce 



their spores 

 in as ci or 

 bladders im- 

 mersed in the 

 naked hyme- 

 n i u m and 

 opening on 

 the surface 

 when ripe. 

 Many of them 

 are disc- 

 shaped (Pezi- 

 zce, etc.), others 

 have club- 

 shaped or glo- 

 bose heads. 

 Of these latter 

 the Morel 

 (Morchella es- 

 culenta, fig. 

 688) is a fa- 

 miliar exam- 

 ple. The hy- 

 menium lines 

 deep poly- 

 gonal pits and 

 is exposed 



Photo l.y] 



FIG. 694. HORN OF PLENTY (Craierellus cornucopioides). 



A large black funnel-shaped fungus bearing spores on its ribbed outer surface. A representativ 

 of the Thelephoreae. 



