30 FUNGI. 
perforated in every direction with minute e:ongated, reticulated, 
anastomosing, labyrinthiform cavities. The resembiance of these 
to the tubes of Boleti in an early stage of growth, first led me to 
suspect that there must be some very close. connection between 
them. If avery thin slice now be taken, while the mass is yet 
firm, and before there is the slightest indication of a change of 
colour, the outer stratum of the walls of these cavities is found 
to consist of pellucid obtuse cells, placed parallel to each other 
like the pile of velvet, exactly as. in the young hymenium of an 
Agaric or Boletus. Occasionally one or two filaments cross from 
one wall to another, and once I have seen these anastomose. 
At a more advanced stage of growth, four little spicules are 
developed at the tips of the sporo- 
pbores, all of which, as far as I have 
been able to observe, are fertile and of 
equal height, and on each of these 
sp.cules a globose spore is seated. It 
is clear that we have here a structure 
identical with that of the true Hy- 
menomycetes, a circumstance which 
_accords well with the fleshy habit and 
mode of growth. There is some diffi- 
culty in ascertaining the exact struc- 
Fra, 9.—Bas‘dia and spores ture of the species. just noticed, as 
of Lycoperdon. the fruit-bearing cells, or sporophores, 
are very small, and when the spicules are dev eloped the substance 
becomes so flace:d that it is difficult to cut a proper slice; even 
with the sharpest lancet.: I have, however, satisfied myself as 
to the true structure by repeated observations. But should any 
difficulty arise in verifying it in the species in question, there 
will be none in doing so in Lycoperdon giganteum. In this 
species the fructifying mass consists of the same sinuous cavities, 
which are, however, smaller, so that the substance is more com- 
pact, and I have not seen them traversed by any filaments. In 
an early stage of growth, the surface of the hymenium, that is of 
the walls of the cavities, consists of short threads composed of 
two or three articulations, which are. slightly constricted at the 
