CHAPTER XIII 



PUFF-BALL FUNGI GASTROMYCETES 



Every schoolboy is supposed to know what a puff-ball is, and 

 therefore they may be accepted as a type of the peculiar order 

 of Fungi to which this chapter is devoted. During the summer 

 the little white puff-balls, growing in the grass of pastures and 

 on heaths, resemble small snowballs, soft and spongy, and 

 scarcely tinged with colour in the pulpy interior. As autumn 

 advances the outer surface at first becomes creamy or ochra- 

 ceous, covered with small warts or spines, which are readily 

 rubbed off with the fingers. Later on the colour becomes 

 brownish, the coating is split irregularly, or opens with a 

 round mouth, and the interior is seen to be filled with a fine 

 olive or purplish powder like snuff, mixed with delicate threads, 

 called the capillitium. Such are the ordinary puff-balls which 

 schoolboys puff in each other's faces, the distinguishing feature 

 being that the myriads of minute spores are wholly enclosed 

 at first within the outer case or. peridiurn, and remain so until 

 mature, when the coating is ruptured. The Gastrumycetes, 

 therefore, are Fungi which, as a rule, produce their spores at 

 the apex of basidia wholly enclosed within the substance of 

 the Fungus. They constitute a portion of the Basidiomycetes, 

 because the spores are developed on basidia, but are specially 

 denominated Gastromycetes, because the basidia and spores are 

 not exposed, as in Hymenomycetes. If an ordinary Ly coper don 

 be cut downwards through the centre, it will be observed that 

 the basal portion is cellular and does not contain spores ; 

 moreover, in some species this sterile portion projects upwards 

 into the interior as a columella — which, however, is not always 

 present. The peridiurn or outer coating in this instance is 



