Scofield : DICTYOPHORA RAVENELII BURT. ape | 
along the strand, but they are more or less twisted about each 
other, very much as are the threads which make up a strand of 
yarn. 
The peripheral area (Fig. 9, c) is composed of loosely inter- 
twining hyphez, much smaller and more profusely branched - 
than the central hyphe, and extending out somewhat into the 
surrounding soil (Fig. 8). They seem to resemble very much 
the root hairs on the roots of higher plants. It seems quite 
probable that the hyphz of the peripheral areas of the smaller 
strands function as the absorptive area of the plant, while the 
larger central hyphez act as conduction paths. 
In the larger strands the peripheral hyphez occupy a rela- 
tively smaller part of the strand and seem to abandon their ab- 
sorptive, to assume more of a cortical function, being reduced 
in the very large strands to a smooth disorganized coating. 
The central hyphe by their habit of twisting about each other 
make it difficult to determine their method of growth and 
branching, for they do not continue long enough in the plane 
of the section to be studied with ease, and in no case were defi- 
nite cross-septa noted although they doubtless exist. 
Upon the mycelium are borne two distinct kinds of bodies: 
(1) the reproductive body, and (2) what it has seemed best to 
call a storage body or ‘‘ tuber.” The latter will be considered 
first. 
The tuber makes its appearance as a slight enlargement of a 
mycelial strand, and in the early stages of its development seems 
to be merely the result of rapid growth of the peripheral 
hyphe. ‘There seems to be little regularity in the size or shape 
of the tubers and even less in regard to their place of occur- 
rence uponthe mycelium. In Fig. ro one of the larger tubers is 
shown, natural size, and upon a connecting strand is shown at 
‘*q@” the base of an old sporophore. The strand bearing this 
tuber seems to have been more or less branched and the tuber 
is lobed to some extent to follow the branching. The tuber is 
made up of very closely woven hyphe which are much dis- 
torted, evidently by being packed full of somewhat granular 
material. In general structure it appears homogeneous except 
the region of the strand upon which it is borne, where the 
hyphez seemed to leave the strand to some extent and mingle 
with those of the tuber, but not so much so that the direction of 
the strand cannot be clearly followed throughout. A section 
