30 



FUNGI. 



perforated in every direction with minute elongated, reticulated, 

 anastomosing, labyrinthiform cavities. The resemblance 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 a very 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- 

 phores, all of which, as far as I have 

 been able to observe, are fertile and of 

 equal height, and on each of these 

 spicules 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- 

 ture of the species just noticed, as 

 the fruit-bearing cells, or sporophores, 

 are very small, and when the spicules are developed the substance 

 becomes so flaccid 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 gigantewm. 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 



Fig. 9. — Basidia and spores 

 of Lycoperdon. 



