PUFF-BALL FUNGI— GASTROMYCETES 157 



falls upon the soil around the Fungus in tlie form of a viscid 

 jelly, and is ere long absorbed in the earth. The short stem- 

 like base arises from a few firm white mycelium strands, 

 composed of thin-walled, sparsely septate, branched threads. 

 After removal of the external gelatinous volva a vertical 

 section shows an external colourless zone, separated from the 

 inner portion, except at the base, by a thin red line. The 

 outermost zone is composed of thick-walled, mostly aseptate, 

 densely interwoven hyphae, passing through the red zone into 

 the central less compact portion, where they are mixed with 

 thin- walled, septate, branched hyphae having numerous slightly 

 thickened free tips. 



When dry the plant is rigid and cuts like horn ; a median 

 vertical section in this condition shows the external wall to 

 consist of three distinct layers — the two outermost confluent at 

 the base, the innermost free below, but in contact with the 

 middle layer at the umbonate apex. The external layer or 

 exoperidium is at first continuous over every part of the plant, 

 and thinnest at the apex. The red streak is now seen to form 

 the innermost portion of the exoperidium, and at the present 

 stage of development exists in the form of red powder. In 

 the earlier condition the cells forming the red zone are thick- 

 walled, the substance of the walls being studded with numerous 

 small red granules. Eventually the walls of the cells 

 constituting this zone become mucilaginous and disappear, 

 leaving the red granules in the form of a fine powder, thus 

 effecting the separation of the exoperidium from the originally 

 homogeneous spherical weft of hyphae. The innermost portion 

 of the exoperidium consists of compactly interwoven, thick- 

 walled hyphae, not at all mucilaginous, and furnished with a 

 few red granules, which become rarer towards the outside, and 

 eventually disappear ; the hyphae at the same time becoming 

 thinner and thinner, owing to the diffluent walls, and at the 

 outside entirely converted into mucilaginous jelly. 



Owing to a slight increase in length of the basal portion, 

 between the exoperidium and endoperidium, and continued 

 increase in the size of the latter, the exoperidium is ruptured 

 at the apex in an irregularly stellate manner, the lobes when 

 moistened curling inwards, and soon breaking away at the 



