56 FUNGI. 
sacs, containing very large and beautiful, often coloured, sporidia. 
These latter have either a smooth, warted, spinulose, or lacunose 
epispore, and, as will be seen from the figures in Tulasne’s 
Monograph, * or those in the last volume of Corda’s great work,f 
are attractive microscopical objects. In some cases, it is not 
difficult to detect paraphyses, but in others they would seem to 
be entirely absent. A comparatively large number have been 
discovered and recorded in Great Britain,t but of these none 
are more suitable for study of general structure than the ordi- 
nary truffle of the markets. 
The structure of the remaining Ascomycetes can be studied 
under two groups, 7.e., the fleshy Ascomycetes, or, as they have 
been termed, the Discomycetes, and the hard,or carbonaceous Asco- 
mycetes, sometimes called the Pyrenomycetes. Neither of these 
names gives an accurate idea of the distinctions between the two 
groups, in the former of which the discoid form is not universal, 
and the latter contains somewhat fleshy forms. But in the Dis- 
comycetes the hymenium soon becomes more or less exposed, 
and in the latter it is enclosed in a perithecium. The Discomy- 
cetes are of two kinds, the pileate and the cup-shaped. Of the 
pileate such a genus as Gyromitra or Helvella is, in a certain 
sense, analogous to the Agarics amongst Hymenomycetes, with a 
superior instead of an inferior hymenium, and enclosed, not 
naked, spores. Again, Geoglossum is somewhat analogous to 
Clavaria. Amongst the cup-shaped, Peziza is an Ascomycetous 
Cyphella. But these are perhaps more fanciful than real 
analogies. 
Recently Boudier has examined one group of the cup-shaped 
Discomycetes, the Ascobolei, and, by making a somewhat free use 
of his Memoir,§ we may arrive at ageneral idea of the struc- 
ture in the cupulate Discomycetes. Thcy present themselves at 
* Tulasne, ‘‘ Fungi Hypogei,” 1851. 
+ Corda, ‘‘Icones Fungorum,” vol. vi. 
t Berkeley and Broome, in ‘‘ Ann. of Nat. Hist.” Ist ser. vol. xviii. (1846), 
p. 73 ; Cooke, in ‘Seem. Journ. Bot.” 
§ Boudier (E.), ‘‘ Mémoire sur les Ascobolés,” in ‘‘ Ann, des Sci, Nat,” 5me 
sér, vol. x. (1869). 
