CLASSIFICATION 483 



complete enjoyment of the beauties of this quaint fungus is its 

 most abominable smell, which is a very much concentrated edition 

 of that possessed by the common stinkhorn — Ithy phallus impudicus. 

 In the " egg " or unexpanded condition it is quite iildistinguishable 

 from the " egg " of the stinkhorn fungus. 



PlLACREACE^ 



Minute fungi, resembling miniature drumsticks, head more or 

 less globose, covered with basidia bearing the spores ; stem slender. 



An anomalous family, the spores are borne laterally on septate 

 basidia, as in the Auriculariacepe, and the principal distinguishing 

 features are of ajnicroscopic character. 



PiLACRE 



Peridium subglobose, stipitate, wall single, soon disappearing 

 and exposing the basidia ; stem slender, elongated. 



P. faginea. — Peridium or head subglobose, whitish with a tinge 

 of brown, up to i| lines across ; threads of the gleba wavy or 

 tortuous ; stem blackish, rather slender, up to | in. long (spores 

 subglobose, yellowish brown, 5 /x diam.). 



On rotten beech wood. Gregarious. 



P. peter sii. — Peridium or head subglobose, whitish, 2-3 lines 

 diam. ; stem 2-3 lines high, pale-coloured (spores circular, with an 

 umbilicus or depression on one side, brown, 5 /x diam.). 



On trunks of hornbeam, holly, beech, etc. Gregarious or crowded 

 in large patches, often extending for many inches. Very local in its 

 occurrence, but not uncommon on the trunks of pollarded horn- 

 beams in Epping Forest. 



Order II. — Ascomycetes 

 The leading structural feature, constant throughout the order, 

 is the production of the spores inside special cells or asci. As a 

 rule, each ascus contains eight spores. There is much greater 

 variety in the structure of the spores in this order than in the 

 Basidiomycetes ; although some are minute, colourless, and simple 

 or one-celled, a great many are coloured, large, and are broken up 

 into two or more cells by cross-walls or septa. In some groups the 

 spores are large, and divided into many cells by walls crossing each 

 other at right-angles. The determination of genera and species 

 depends to a very great extent on the structure of the spores, hence 

 microscopic examination is much more essential than it is in the 

 Basidiomycetes, although even in the last-named order, as the 

 student progresses in the study, it will be found that spore structure 

 and measurements will aid to a very material extent in the dis- 

 crimination of species, and in the case of what are termed critical 

 species, the spores often afford the most certain means of settling 

 a knotty problem. 



