THE HONEY FUNGUS 149 
Microscopie details of the fructification. The general 
appearance of fructifications has been described in the 
previous section. A few details of mycological interest may 
here be added. The young sporophores arise singly, or in 
clumps, as masses of whitish hyphae, either growing from 
the extremity of a rhizomorphic branch or from the white 
mycelial sheets which lie hidden beneath the bark of diseased 
trees. They are most commonly found on or near the 
ground, but may arise 6-ft. or more up a trunk, this position 
being especially frequent on Scots or Austrian pine. The 
pileus is early delimited from the stipe by an annular furrow, 
on each side of which the young toadstools become swollen. 
The more pronounced swelling on the upper side becomes 
the pileus ; the lesser swelling on the lower side forms the 
veil. Hartig’s drawing of this stage is reproduced in the 
translation of de Bary’s Comparative Morphology, fig. 133. 
The young veil soon becomes congruent with the margin of 
the pileus, and the latter by greater growth on the upper 
side becomes curved so that the annulus is not unduly 
stretched. Inside the ring-shaped cavity between the veil 
and the stipe the gills develop, and when they are sufficiently 
mature to bear ripe spores, the veil is ruptured by increased 
growth on the lower side of the pileus. 
The rupture occurs near the margin of the pileus, so that 
the veil remains attached to the stipe and forms the annulus, 
which when fresh may be as much as a centimetre in breadth. 
In the early stages the pileus is completely covered by 
a skin which is continuous with the veil, but with the final 
expansion of the former this skin is ruptured in many 
places and remains in the form of scales on the upper 
surface. 
The arrangement of the gills is shown in figs. 60 and 61. 
Each gill is entirely covered by the hymenium, a layer 
composed of basidia and paraphyses (fig. 62). Each basidium 
commonly bears four spores on sterigmata, not unlike those 
of Fomes annosus, but. basidia with two or three spores are 
occasionally found. The dispersal mechanism of the spores 
is like that of Fomes annosus, i.e. the spores are thrown 
