CHAPTEE V 



THE FEUOTIFICATION 



The contents of the various forms of receptacle already- 

 described, and those forms of fructification which are capable 

 of being produced naked, without a receptacle, next demand 

 attention. The best-known to the general public, and there- 

 fore the most interesting, are those large and conspicuous Fungi 

 which pass under the name of Mushrooms or Agarics, and 

 the woody Polypores, with the spore-bearing surface on the 

 under side. In more scientific language, these are the 

 Hymenomycetal Fungi, and so called because the hymenium 

 or fructifying surface is naked, and produces naked spores. 

 From what has preceded it will be remembered that a fleshy 

 or woody pileus or receptacle, sometimes with, and sometimes 

 without a stem, is the supporter of this kind of fructification. 

 To the eye it presents the appearance of a continuous surface 

 extending over plates or gills in the Agaricini, lining the 

 interior of parallel tubes in the Polyporei, covering the outer 

 surface of teeth or spines in the Hydnei, disposed over a nearly 

 even plane in the Thelephorei, effused over an erect, simple, or 

 branched carpophore, but without receptacle in the Clavariei, 

 and immersed in a gelatinous stratum in the Tremellinei. 

 Under all these modifications the primary elements of the 

 hymenium are the same, or chiefly so ; that is to say, there are 

 one, two, or three kinds of elongated cells, packed side by side 

 and called respectively basidia, cystidia, and sterile cells. 

 Only the first kind are fertile, and bear at the apex four 

 spores, surmounted on short slender spicules ; the cystidia 1 are 



1 The usual interpretation of the function of cystidia is, that they are simply 

 mechanical contrivances projecting from the surface of the hymenium, and thus 

 keeping, the gills or lamellae apart. 



