SECT. in. GASTEROMYCETES. 267 



globular bodies, a number of flexuous threads spring, 

 carrying on their tips cymbiform spores. 6 



In the preceding family (Hymenomycetes) the fruit- 

 bearing surface has free access to the air, but in the 

 group of the GASTEROMYCETES, which consists of five or 

 six sub-orders, it has neither access to air or light till the 

 fruit is ripe, for the fructification is enclosed in a rind 

 of one or two coats, and springs without a stem from 

 a gelatinous thready, or cellular mycelium. The most 

 important group, Trichogastres, includes the puff- 

 balls, which grow on the ground. Of these the Lyco- 

 perdon, found everywhere on pasture grounds and 

 meadows, is a familiar instance. When young it has 

 a milk-white coat filled with closely packed cells, 

 some of which bear naked spores set upon spicules. 

 When mature, the whole of the interior vanishes, 

 leaving nothing but a mass of threads and fruit; the 

 coat becomes brown, bursts open at the top, and gives 

 vent to a cloud of microscopic spores like the finest 

 dust. In general the ball is sessile, or it has merely 

 the rudiment of a stem. The Lycoperdon gigan- 

 teum, an exceedingly large species, is "a native of 

 a warm climate. The tops of some of the branched 

 threads of its hymenium swell into pear-shaped cells 

 surmounted by short spicules ending in spores ; when 

 young it is edible, when dry it is used for tinder and as a 

 styptic, and when ignited its fumes possess a property 

 similar to that of chloroform. The Batarrea forms a 

 contrast to the common puff-balls, being mounted on a 

 stem sometimes a foot and a half high. It has several 

 coats enclosing a thick gelatinous substance in which 

 the threads carrying the spores are distinctly spiral and 

 closely twisted. 



The sub-order Hypogsei is subterranean, as the name 



6 Berkeley's ' Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany.' 



