CLASSIFICATION. 71 
formed from the mycelium, and, when mature, are expelled 
through a rupture of the cuticle beneath which they are gene- 
rated, often issuing in long gelatinous tendrils. Here, again, 
the majority of what were formerly regarded as distinct species 
have been found, or suspected, to be forms of higher fungi. The 
Torulacei represent the superficial fungi of this family, and these 
consist of a more or less developed mycelium, which gives rise 
to fertile threads, which, by constriction and division, mature 
into moniliform chains of spores. The species mostly appear 
as blackish velvety patches or stains on the stems of herbaceous 
plants and on old weathered wood. 
Much interest attaches to the other sub-family of Coniomycetes, 
in which the species are produced for the most part on living 
plants. So much has been discovered during recent years of the 
polymorphism which subsists amongst the species in this section, 
that any detailed classification can only be regarded as pro- 
visional. Hence we shall proceed here upon the supposition 
that we are dealing with autonomous species. In the first place, 
we must recognize a small section in which a kind of cellular 
peridium is present. This is the £cidiacei, or order of “ cluster 
cups.” The majority of species are very beautiful objects under 
the microscope ; the peridia are distinctly cellular, and white or 
pallid, produced beneath the cuticle, through which they burst, 
and, rupturing at the apex, in one genus in a stellate manner, 
so that the teeth, becoming reflexed, resemble delicate fringed 
cups, with the orange, golden, brown, or whitish spores or 
pseudospores nestling in the interior.* These pseudospores 
are at first produced in chains, but ultimately separate. In 
many cases these cups are either accompanied or preceded by 
spermogonia. In two other orders there is no peridium. In 
the Ceomacei, the pseudospores are more or less globose or 
ovate, sometimes laterally compressed and simple; and in 
Pucciniai, they are elongated, often subfusiform and septate. 
In both, the pseudospores are produced in tufts or clusters 
direct from the mycelium. The Ceomacei might again be sub- 
* Corda, ‘‘Icones Fungorum,” vol. iii. fig. 45. 
