276 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [NOVEMBER 
The discovery of the veil introduces a new morphological feature 
not contemplated in SCHROETER’sS scheme. The value of the veil 
as an important taxonomic criterion depends, not so much upon 
the fact that it may at first inclose the hymenium, as upon its nature 
as an organ of the ascocarp. If it were simply the roof of a depres- 
sion, comparable with the roof that covers over the young hymenium 
of a Peziza, and which breaks away to form the edge of the cup, 
then the Helvellinean forms in*which it oceurs would plainly be 
only modified Pezizas. But if, as seems to be the case, it were 
a distinct envelope which covers over the entire ascocarp, and 
perhaps incidentally also the young hymenium, then so far as we 
know it is a feature not represented in the Pezizineae, with the 
possible exception of the as yet uninvestigated Helotiaceae and 
Mollisiaceae. 
In reviewing the conditions prevailing in the Helvellineae, it 
is found that the veil is absent in the only member of the Rhizi- 
naceae which has been studied, it is present in the only member of 
the Helvellaceae of which we have knowledge, while at the present 
time the Geoglossaceae are about equally divided. In the last 
named family the following species may be considered as angiocar- 
pous: Mitrula phalloides, Leotia lubrica (Dirrricu 7); Microglossum 
viride (DURAND 11); Cudonia lutea, Spathularia velutipes (DURAND 
11, Durr 10). The gymnocarpous members appear to be Geo- 
glossum glabrum, G. difforme, Trichoglossum velutipes (DURAND 11); 
and Trichoglossum hirsutum (McCusBIN 17, Durr 10). It may be 
noted that the gymnocarpous species are all closely related, belong- 
ing to genera that were at one time comprised in the single genus 
Geoglossum, while the others, with the exception of Microglossum 
viride, belong to less closely related genera. This means, so far as our 
evidence goes, that the Rhizina and Geoglossum groups are typically 
gymnocarpous, while the remaining Helvellineae are angiocarpous. 
In searching for a structure in other Ascomycetes which might 
be homologized with the Helvellinean veil, we find one in the Bae- 
omyces group of the disco-lichens. Some such relationship had 
already suggested itself to Dirrricu, who, after emphasizing other 
points of similarity, goes on to say that in Baeomyces the upper por- 
tions of the thallus which overlie the anlage of the fruit body, and 
which later surround the young fructification, seem to assume the 
