202 Dynamic Theory. 



Some of the orders of the Hymenomycetes, instead of having gills or 

 curtains on the underside of the pileus, have tubes or pores, others have 

 warts or spines, others are nearly smooth, the hymeneum in each case 

 covering all and developing the spores. 



Another order, Clavariei, is club-shaped, or cylindrical, and the hy- 

 meneum covers the outside all round. In the sixth order of this family, 

 Tremellini, the fungus is folded and lobed like the convolutions of a 

 brain, and is of a gelatinous appearance. Throughout the gelatinous 

 mass there are filaments or threads, the ends of which, coming to the 

 surface, bear the spores, which are dropped on the surface of the Tre- 

 mella like fine white dust. The color of this fungus is a fine, golden 

 yellow. The spores are from .006 to .008 of a millimetre in diameter, 

 about ^^ part of an inch. 



The second family is named the G aster omycetes, and are mushrooms 

 with an internal cavity or belly in which the spores are generated. 

 Some of them are subterranean. The puff-ball, Lycoperdon, belongs to 

 an order of this family. Everybody has seen them when ripe, kicked 

 and blown about, distributing their spores like dust everywhere. One 

 of these balls has been known to attain the diameter of a foot. Some 

 of this family, when ripe, attract water from the air and deliquesce (like 

 some mineral crystals) and liquify. Others, as the Nidulariacei, when 

 ripe burst open at the top, showing the spores on infinitesimal stems or 

 spicules, like little eggs in a nest, as the name implies. There are sev- 

 eral subterranean genera connected with this family. 



The third famliy is Coniomycetes, or dust mushrooms, so called because 

 they develop mostly into spores and, in many cases, are without any 

 mycelium (roots) or stems. Some of them get into crevices of the bark 

 of dead trees, form their spores under a little cap or perithecium, and 

 when mature drive them out at an orifice at its apex. Others, as the 

 Melanconiei, "black dust," have a network of mycelium, very fine and 

 close, covered with a sort of cuticle. The spores are formed between 

 the two and expelled through the latter. 



The Torulacei constitute an order in this family. They consist of 

 nothing but chains of spores linked together ; sometimes the spores are 

 simple, in other cases are divided by cross partitions, which finally sepa- 

 rate the parts into so many spores, and sometimes a simple thread or 

 elongated cell is subdivided by the septa or partitions into spores. 

 There are three other orders in this family, all of whose genera are para- 

 sitic on live plants. A sub-order entitled the Ustilagines includes the 

 smuts and bunts of grain plants, and another sub-order, the Uredines, 

 includes the red rusts of wheat and grasses. 



The fourth family is the Hypho-mycetes (woven or webbed mushrooms). 

 These include the moulds, some of which are of microscopic dimensions 



