B AS IDIOM YCE TES 



397 



becomes recurved after splitting longitudinally and acquiring a stellate 

 aspect, and Batarrea (Pers.), which possesses an axile column immedi- 

 ately beneath the middle of the inner peridium. It develops into a stout 

 stalk, which raises the closed inner peridium on its summit and ruptures 

 the outer one, which now resembles in appearance the velum universale 

 of Hymenomycetes. In Scleroderma (Pers.) the development of the 

 glebe is intermediate between Hymenogastreas and Lycoperdace». 

 While the trama is disorganised, and a portion persists as a fine network 

 together with the masses of spores, it yet forms no true capillitium. 

 The NiDULARiE^, though very different in outward aspect from the 



!>/ if- 



Fig. ^"i-j.—CrucibuluTn ^mlgare Tul. 

 A—Cy longitudinal section through 

 ripening sporophores ; stages of deve- 

 lopment in jorder of letters (slightly 

 magniiied). Z>, ripe sporophore in 

 which the epiphragm is beginning to 

 disappear (natural size). (After de 

 Bary.) ' 



Fig. 32B,—Cruciiulum vulgare. Section through upper 

 part of sporophore of about same age as B in Fig. 327 

 (more highly magniHed). a/, the outer, z^, the inner 

 peridium; r/ and of, its hairs; «, funiculus; t, the 

 layer which forms a sheath round it, and belongs to a 

 peridiolum divided through the middle. (After Sachs.) 



other sections, are yet readily comparable with them. The chambers 

 of the glebe possess very stout walls, and ultimately become separated 

 from each other. The wall of the peridium becomes transformed into 

 a gelatinous substance over the apical region, and on its disappearance 

 the chambers of the glebe (peridiola) are left exposed in the interior of 

 the bowl-shaped lower portion of the wall. Free and detached they 

 resemble comparatively large sporanges. In Crucibulum (Tul.) a thin 

 white membrane termed the epiphragm temporarily covers the summit 



(fig- 327)- 



The Phalloide^ are an assemblage of very remarkable and strange 

 forms, in which the Basidiomycetes find their highest development. 



