Gastromycetes 



SUB-CLASS BASIDIOMYCETES. 



COHORT GASTROMTCETES. Gr.-gasteron, a sac, etc. 



(Plate CLVI.). 



1 A. Exterior skin, bark, rind, cortex, scurf, 



warts, spines, bristles peridium. 

 Plants with long spines echinate. 



B. Inner rind or true peridium. [A. B. 

 peridia (plural of peridium).] 



C. Columella those filaments springing 

 from the base and rising, which do not 

 unite freely with those issuing from the 

 inner peridium. This mass of threads 

 is usually conical, but sometimes glo- 

 bose. 



D. Capillitium a soft mass of cottony 

 threads interspersed with minute dust- 

 like spores; the space occupied is called 

 the gleba. 



E. Coarse empty, sterile cells. The space 

 they occupy is called the subgleba. 



F. Echinate spores magnified. 



G. Spines (magnified) which fall off and 

 leave the inner peridium exposed. 



2. 



A. Lycoperdon echinatum. 

 B. Spmes (magnified) which fall off and leave tesselated inner peridium exposed. (After Morgan.) 



As has been stated, the two Cohorts in which a hymenium or spore- 

 bearing surface is present are called Hymenomycetes and Gastromycetes. 

 In the first the hymenium is exposed, as in the common mushroom. In 

 the second Gastromycetes the hymenium is at first enclosed in a sac 

 or peridium, as in the common puff-ball. 



The botanical description of Gastromycetes, given by M. C. Cooke, 

 is: "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 

 insisting coat or peridium.' 



The Gastromycetes are usually large, ground-growing fungi. A few 

 grow upon wood. The peridium is of dense structure, usually globose 



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