102 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF FUNGI 



groups into which they are divided, leaving each group to be 

 analysed and amplified hereafter. 1 



Let it be remembered that there are two distinct types in 

 which the fruit, or spores, are produced in the whole of the 

 Fungi — that is to say, the naked spores are borne at the tips 

 of threads or basidia, and exposed from the first or soon after- 

 wards. This is the first type. In other cases the spores are 

 enclosed from the first, in some definite number, within little 

 membranous tubes or sacs called asci, and are not set free 

 until fully mature. This is the second or ascigerous type. 

 There is a very small intermediate group which seems to 

 partake of the characters of both primary types — with the 

 addition of sexual reproduction — represented by the Phyco- 

 mycetes. 



Let us return to the naked-spored Fungi. These we shall 

 find to constitute three or four groups of a well-defined 

 character, of which the largest and most important is that 

 which includes the large fleshy or woody Fungi best known to 

 the unscientific public as mushrooms and polypores, which 

 have the naked spores arranged upon a special spore-bearing 

 surface called the hymenium. In this group the hymenium is 

 covered with more or less club-shaped, erect cells, or basidia, 

 which are surmounted by two to four short spicules, or 

 sterigmata, each surmounted by a spore. These are the Basidio- 

 mycetes, or Fungi with basidia, and were almost the whole of the 



1 I. Spores exposed, or not enclosed in Asci. 



Perfect -f a ' Hymenomycetes. Basidiospores. 



\b. Uredineae, etc. Spore cycle. 



( c. Hyphomycetes. Conidia. 



j 1 d. Sphaeropsideae. Sporules at first produced from a 



) hymenium, which is at first nearly 



( covered by their receptacle. 



This group evidently belongs to the other three, as there are no asci present, 

 but are linked to the Ascomycetes by the perithecium, excipulum, or specialised 

 cavities in which the spores are produced. 



II. Sporidia enclosed in Asci. 



a. Pyrenomycetes — receptacle perforate or ruptured. 



b. Discomycetes — receptacle discoid. 

 Including Hysteriaceae — receptacle bilabiate. 



c. Tuberaceae — receptacle always closed. 



