MUSHROOMS AND TOADSTOOLS 24 1 



Most of the forms are irregularly globose and grow under trees, some- 

 times their association with certain kinds of trees suggesting a para- 

 sitic attachment. They are often found in sandy places, where they 

 are exposed frequently by rain erosion. The mycelium of these fungi 

 is filamentous, or cord-like. The gleba is richly chambered and the 

 walls of the glebal chambers are lined with the hymenium. Cystidia 

 are often found between the basidia. The fruit bodies are variously 

 shaped. In Lycogalopsis, they are hemispheric; in Phyllogaster, pear- 

 shaped; in Cauloglossum, club-shaped; some are stalked and suggest 

 the shape of the Agaricace^. 



Very few of the forms are known commonly, and of the dozen Cali- 

 fornian species, many are known imperfectly by a single collection. 

 Gaiitieria and Sclerogaster have each a single species in California; 

 Hymenogaster and Octaviana are represented by two Californian species, 

 while Hysterangium and Melanogaster have three species in California. 

 Two species of Rhizopogon and one of Melanogaster are found in South 

 Carolina. The climate probably has something to do with this 

 distribution. 



Family 2. Tylostomace^. At first, the fruit body is subter- 

 ranean, later as in Tylostoma niammosa, a form found in heathland, it is 

 raised on a stalk not prolonged as an axis. The peridium is double, the 

 outer one falUng off at maturity, the inner one is thin. The uncham- 

 bered gleba possesses well-developed capilUtial threads, which are con- 

 nected with the inner wall of the endoperidium. The basidia in 

 Tylostoma are unicellular, club-shaped and bear four laterally placed 

 spores, one above the other on well-developed sterigmata, thus differ- 

 ing from the other two basidiomycetous fungi. 



Family 3. Lycoperdace^. — -The fruit body from the beginning is 

 epigaeic. Its gleba is chambered richly and the inner walls of each 

 chamber are lined with a hymenium. The peridium is differentiated 

 into an outer and an inner peridium. The gleba, when ripe, breaks 

 down into powdery spores and richly branched capilHtial threads. This 

 family contains some of our most delicious and important food species, 

 if they are taken before fully mature. The genus Ly coper don, in which 

 the true peridium opens by an apical mouth, includes over one hundred 

 species, which in America can be divided into the purple-spored series, 

 and the olive-spored series. Lycoperdon atropurpureum is found in sandy 

 pastures, woods and bushy places commonly in the months from August 

 16 



