CLASSIFICATION, 69 
In the former, the peridium is either single or double, oc- 
casionally borne on a stem, but usually sessile. In Geaster, 
the “starry puff-balls,” the outer peridium divides into 
several lobes, which fall back in a stellate manner, and expose 
the inner peridium, like a ball in the centre. In Polysaccum, 
the interior is divided into numerous 
cells, filled with secondary peridia. The 
mode of spore-production has already 
been alluded to in our remarks on Lyco- 
perdon. All the species are large, as 
compared with those of the following 
sub-family, and one species of Lycoper- 
don attains an enormous size. One 
specimen recorded in the ‘“ Gardener's 
b Chronicle” was three feet four inches 
88.—Scleroderma vulgare, Fr. in circumference, and weighed nearly 
ten pounds. In the Mysogastres, the early stage has been the 
subject of much controversy. The gelatinous condition presents 
phenomena so unlike anything previously recorded in plants, 
that one learned professor* did not hesitate to propose their 
exclusion from the vegetable, and recognition in the animal, 
kingdom as associates of the Gregarines. When mature, the 
spores and threads so much resemble those of the Trichogastres, 
and the little plants themselves are so veritably miniature puff- 
balls, that the theory of their animal nature did not meet with 
a ready acceptance, and is now virtually abandoned. The cha- 
racters of the family we have thus briefly reviewed are tersely 
stated, as— 
Hymenium more or less permanently concealed, consisting in 
most cases of closely-packed cells, of which the fertile ones bear 
naked spores on distinct spicules, exposed only by the rupture or 
decay of the investing coat or peridium = GASTEROMYCETES. 
We come now to the second section of the Sporifera, in 
which no definite hymenium is present. And here we find 
also two families, in one of which the dusty spores are the 
* De Bary, A., ‘‘ Des Myxomycétes,”’ in ‘‘ Ann. des Sci. Nat.” 4™¢ sér. xi, 
p. 153; ‘* Bot. Zeit.” xvi. p. 357. 
