CuxNINGHAM.—A Revision of the New Zealand Nidulariales. 59 
A Revision of the New Zealand Nidulariales, or “ Birds-nest Fungi." 
By б. Н. Оохҳіхенам, Mycologist, Biological Laboratory, 
Wellington, N.Z. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 23rd October, 1922 ; received by Editor, 
3181 December, 1922 ; issued separately, 26th May 1924.] 
Plates 3, 4. 
ALL species belonging to this order are saprophytic, occurring on decaying 
wood, old sacking, or on the ground. They favour moist localities, and 
may commonly be found growing on humus on the forest-floor. The 
fructifications are quite small, seldom attaining a greater diameter than 
10 mm.; they may be cup- or funnel-shaped, although frequently obconic 
forms occur. 
The order is widely distributed, and some of the species have been found 
in nearly every country in the world; others, again, have a very limited 
distribution, occurring in but one or two localities. 
The order comprises only one family, the Nidulariaceae, consisting of 
the four genera Cyathus, Crucibulum, Nidula, and Nidularia. The genus 
Sphaerobolus, at one time included in the Nidulariaceae, was by Ed. Fischer 
(1900, p. 346) placed in a separate family, the Sphaerobolaceae. 
In structure the fructifications of all genera, mutatis mutandis, are 
essentially alike, a typical fructification consisting of a peridium containing 
numerous lenticular bodies, péridiola (also termed “ sporangioles ”), which 
woven hyphal filaments (in Cyathus it is composed of three layers). The 
apex is'at first enclosed by a thin epiphragm (absent in Nidularia, the 
peridia of whic obose 
p 
gelatinized, when the peridiola lie embedded in a gelatinous matrix, the 
