244 MYCOLOGY 



opens by a mouth that is situated at the actual base of the plant as it 

 grows. The lower part remains as a saucer-shaped body in the soil. 

 A capillitium is present. Catastoma circumscissum is the common species. 



The earth stars are included in the genus Geaster, where the peridium 

 consists of three persistent coats, the two outer adhere and split into 

 leathery, stellate divisions exposing the parchment-like inner peridium, 

 which opens by an apical pore (Fig. 97). It has a columella. The spores 

 are dark brown and mixed with the simple capillitial threads. Geaster 

 hygrometricus is the common species. It grows in sandy soil and in dry 

 weather its segments are strongly recurved, but in wet weather they 

 expand, hence the plant is sometimes dubbed poor man's weather 

 glass. Astr(Eus, which resembles Geaster, is distinguished by the 

 absence of a columella and by the long capilUtial threads which are 

 much branched and interwoven. 



Family 4. Nidulariace^. — The following account of the family 

 of bird's-nest fungi is taken from Bulletin 175, United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, on "Mushrooms and Other Common Fungi" by 

 Flora W. Patterson and Vera K. Charles. Dried material of these 

 fungi might be kept for use by the class in the systematic study of the 

 higher fungi with the following key at hand. The types should be 

 used as unknowns. 



Members of the family Nidulariace^ are represented by small, 

 leathery, cup-shaped plants growing on old sacking, manure, earth, and 

 decaying or dried wood. The common name is suggested by the form 

 of the peridium, which is cup-shaped and contains many small, lenticu- 

 lar bodies (peridiola) resembhng eggs. The mouth of the peridium is at 

 first covered by a membrane (epiphragm), which later becomes ruptured 

 and exposes the peridioles. In Cyathiis and Crucibulum, the peridi- 

 oles are attached to the inner wall of the peridium by elastic cords 

 called funiculi. The spore-bearing tissue and spores are never resolved 

 into a dusty mass, as in many Gasteromycetes, but persist in the 

 form of peridiola which contain the spores, which are hyaline and 

 ellipsoidal to subglobose. 



Key to Nidulariace^ 



Peridium with several to many sporangioles: 

 Peridium torn at the apex in opening— 



Sporangioles not attached to the inner wall of the peridium. Nidiilaria. 



