ON FOSSIL FUNGI. 325 



tubes are long, and may be said to branch rather freely ; but in 

 others they are cramped and much contorted ; they are usually 

 inextricably involved ; and in a few instances they radiate from 

 centres, and are short, sinuous, and stout. In all cases they 

 terminate in rounded extremities when not in bulbs. 



The branches are very frequently sharply defined, and exhibit 

 a double marginal line, indicating that they have proper walls. 

 They are occasionally filled with the matrix ; and then they are 

 black and perfectly opaque, and have a very striking appearance. 

 The contained black matter is continuous with the external mat- 

 rix, and from this fact it may be inferred that the tubes open 

 externally ; indeed, their arrangement seems to indicate this ; 

 however, they are usually transparent, and reveal within their 

 walls oval spore-like bodies, which pervade both the branches 

 and the bulbous enlargements. Similar spore-like bodies are 

 frequently scattered through the substance of the fungus amidst 

 the ramifications; and in a few specimens in our possession 

 these spore-like bodies are thickly scattered throughout the en- 

 tire substance, no tubes or any other structure being perceptible. 

 In others, again, nothing is observed in the homogeneous matter 

 except circular vesicles resembling the bulbous enlargements of 

 the tubes ; in some instances such vesicles, large and small, are 

 mingled together, and have scattered amidst them the spore-like 

 bodies. In one remarkable specimen the vesicles seem to be 

 formed into a connected congeries towards the margin. 



Another variety of these curious fungi has the outer bark or 

 cuticle rather thick, and it seems to be composed of two or three 

 layers. Immediately within the innermost layer there is a thin 

 stratum of minute granules, which in some specimens is much 

 extended, and the granules enlarged. In the former the quarter- 

 inch object glass is requisite to resolve them; in the latter an 

 inch glass shows them very well. And, what is rather peculiar, 

 at certain points of the circumference the bark or cuticle is folded 

 inwards, the outer layer to a much less extent than the inner, 

 thus leaving a wide space between the tAvo. These inward 

 foldings, of which there are three or four, bulge considerably 

 into the substance of the fungus, and arc somewhat rcniform or 



