312 DIVISION II.—COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 
persistent. This separation of the peridiola in the opened bowl-shaped or cup-shaped 
wall of the peridium is the distinguishing mark of the Nidularieae. Each peridiolum 
is lined with a single hymenial layer which almost entirely fills the inner cavity ; 
the basidia disappear after abscision of their spores, which are usually four in 
number. 
4. The Phalloideae, according to our present knowledge, have a comparatively 
small gleba within a very massive peridial wall which is characterised by a gelatinous 
middle layer. The structure of the gleba is, as in the Hymenogastreae, up tq the 
formation of the spores; it has a great number of narrow chambers, and (except 
perhaps in Ileodictyon ?) is traversed more or less completely by a thick central column, 
from which the walls of the chambers radiate. Its entire tissue, with the exception of 
the column, is disorganised when the small narrowly cylindrical spores are ripe, and 
becomes a perfectly structureless mass of jelly which dissipates in water and, like the 
spores, is of a dark-green colour. As the gleba developes a certain portion of the 
peridial wall is transformed into a receplaculum in the narrower sense, which remains 
at first in connection with the gleba, but becomes suddenly and greatly elongated at 
maturity and carries up the gleba above the wall of the peridium which has opened 
at the apex, and there allows it to deliquesce. 
The conformation of the receptaculum is unusually different in the extreme cases. 
One extreme is represented by Clathrus cancellatus and Ileodietyon. Here it is 
formed in the inner layer of the peridial wall surrounding the gleba as a large hollow 
body pierced so as to form a net-work or lattice-work. The gleba with the central 
column which shares the gelatinous disorganisation of the gleba adheres to the 
receptaculum at its final elongation and then breaks up and drops off. The other 
extreme appears in Phallus and the allied forms; in these the receptaculum is a simple 
fusiform body formed in the middle of the central column, which ruptures the ripening 
gleba above its apex so as to form a conical cap and finally carries it up, in 
consequence of its own elongation, above the ruptured apex of the peridium. The 
two extremes are connected by a series of intermediate forms, the important points in 
which are occupied by Clathrus (Colus) hirudinosus’, Aseroe’, Calathiscus*®, and 
Aserophallus‘. 
Phallus and its nearest allies are evidently the furthest removed from the rest 
of the Gastromycetes. Comparison of early states, on the other hand, show an 
unmistakeable and close agreement and affinity between forms such as Clathrus and 
lleodictyon on one side and Geaster, a genus of the Lycoperdaceae, on the other. A 
nearer connection seems to be established through the intermediate genus Mitremyces, 
but this requires further proof. 
Section XC. There are many undesirable lacunae in the history of the 
development of the compound sporophores of the above four groups, chiefly owing 
to the difficulty in procuring them in their early states. There is more than one cause 
of this difficulty ; most species pass the first period of their existence beneath the 

Tulasne, Explor. sc. d’Algérie, Fungi, p. 435, t. 23, ff. 9-22. 
See Corda, Icon. fung. VI. 
Montagne in Ann. d. sc. nat.-sér.-2, XVI. 
Montagne et Léprieur, in Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 3, IV (1844). See also Corda, Icon. Fung. VI. 
