2 4 



INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF FUNGI 



Fig. 9. — Compound carpophore 

 of Fiibercularia. 



the Dematioei, or black moulds, the chief difference being in the 

 dark-coloured, more rigid, and carbonised hyphae. 



Resembling the moulds in external habit, the Minors 

 resemble them also in the carpophore, which is sometimes 

 fQrked two or three times, but not dendritically branched. In 

 Pilobolus the carpophore is curiously inflated, like a bladder 

 (Fig. 10). 



We have in remembrance a pseudo-analogy which some 

 few years since became current — that 

 the type of organisation in a Muce- 

 dinous mould was repeated, with 

 modifications, in the structure of 

 Agarics. The mycelium, it was con- 

 tended, was common to both. Prom 

 the mycelium arose the carpophore, 

 which was a compound stalk, in 

 which a myriad of erect hyphae 

 were combined; in the pileus the combination was continued 

 of the branches, and then down to the basidia, which 

 were the terminals of the branchlets, with the spores, or 

 conidia on spicules, as in such a genus as Bhinotrichum. 

 This was a fanciful representation, since the 

 analogy, even if it held good elsewhere, was 

 broken at the hymenium, and the basidia were 

 therefore not in continuity with the trama. In 

 the HymeTwmycetes, or at least in the Agaricini, 

 the stem is continued from the mycelium at 

 right angles, as in the moulds, and is compounded 

 of an infinity of elongated parallel cells ; these 

 are sometimes deficient in the centre, and the 

 carpophore, or stem, becomes hollow. Leaving 

 the appendages to the stem out of question, it 

 is still an erect carpophore, and hence its func- 

 tions are the same — that of elevating the re- 

 productive organs into the atmosphere. In 

 the same manner also the materials of nutrition, 

 derived by the mycelium from the soil, are conveyed upwards 

 to the residue of the plant. The veil, where it exists, is 

 a supplementary appendage, not found in the moulds, and is 



Fig. 10.— Inflat- 

 ed carpophore 

 of Pilobolus. 



