HYMENOMYCETES 



141 



Fig. 55. — Eadulum. 



A number of small genera are associated together in this 

 family, the modifications consisting chiefly in the teeth or 

 spines ; for instance, in Irpex the teeth are flattened at the base, 

 and connected so as to form irregular pits ; and in Badulum the 

 teeth more resemble obtuse tubercles, 

 and are often distorted (Fig. 55). 

 In Phlebia, an aberrant genus, the 

 hymenium is corrugated, with fold-like 

 crests, so as to resemble Auricularia 

 almost as much as anything else, and 

 Hydnum scarcely at all. Then in the 

 wholly resupinate genera, Grandinia 

 has the hymenium granular, Odontia 

 has the granules or warts crested, and 

 in Kneiffia the hymenium is clad with 

 rigid setae. Except in Mucronella, 

 and probably Kneiffia, the basidia are tetrasporous. The whole 

 family does not include more than about 470 species. 



The last of the four primary families of Hymenomyceteae 

 which have an inferior hymenium, is the Thelephoreae, which 

 nearly corresponds to the section Auricularini of Fries, with the 

 exception of the genus Auricularia, transferred to Tremellineae. 

 The hymenium is typically even, but rarely rugose, approaching 

 the Hydneaceae by such genera as Cladoderris and Beccariella, 

 in which the hymenium is veined, and the veins are warted 

 or almost aculeate. Mr. G. Massee has intimated 1 that " the 

 Thelephoreae constitute the base, and also the starting-point, in 

 the evolution of the Hymenomycetes, and, further, that from 

 the Thelephoreae all the other orders have directly originated." 



In this family, as in the others, the species are variable in 

 form as well as in texture. Only in Craterellus is the substance 

 fleshy, attenuated in some species to membranaceous, often with 

 a central stem and a funnel-shaped pileus, the outer or under sur- 

 face being clothed with a ribbed or rugose hymenium (Fig. 5 6). 

 Cladoderris and Beccariella are tough and leathery, mostly fan- 

 shaped, sometimes funnel-shaped, but with a warted hymenium. 

 In Thelephora the substance is tough, but softer and more 



1 " Monograph of the Thelephoreae," by G. Massee, in Linnean Journal, xxv. 

 p. 112. 



