320 DIVISION I].—COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 
towards the upper end, where the margin at length reaches nearly to the apical surface 
of the peridium (Fig. 150 A). By the formation of this gelatinous layer the dense 
non-gelatinous tissue outside it is separated from the rest and becomes the lateral 
wall of the peridium, which is then differentiated into two concentric layers, an outer 
permanent layer of brown felt and an inner whitish layer. Meanwhile no separ- 
ation takes place in the middle and beneath the apex, but the dense still undiffer- 
entiated primitive tissue extends from the latter into the interior space as a thick round 
sac. At length the differentiation spreads further into the interior of the originally 
uniform mass, while all the parts increase simultaneously in volume. Portions 
which are at first round in form become 
more dense and are separated from one 
another by the spread of the gelatinisation 
from without inwards successively between 
them (Figs. 150 B, 151). These are the 
primordia of the chambers of the gleba 
or feridiola. During their further inde- 
pendent growth, the gelatinisation goes 
on also beneath the apical surface, which 
is now covered only by a thin continua- 
tion of the inner wall of the peridium. 
The apex is at first clothed with brown 
hairs ; as it increases in size with the 
general growth the hairs are pushed aside 
and no new ones are formed; the summit 
is therefore destitute of the covering of 
hairs, and is a thin white membrane, the 
epiphragm (Fig. 150 D), which becomes 
torn up and disappears at maturity, The 
gelatinous tissue round the peridiola also 
disappears, and the latter lie heaped up 
at the bottom of the now open cup-shaped 
sporophore. 
The peridiola grow from their first be- 
ginnings into a lenticular form, and be- 
come inclined obliquely at an acute angle 
opening upwards to the lateral wall of the 
peridium (Figs. 150 C, 152). A central 
cavity appears in them at an early period, 
filled at first, it is said, by a felted gela- 
tinous tissue which afterwards disappears, 
but this perhaps is uncertain ; the cavity 
FIG. 152. Crucibulum vulgare, Thin median section through has the same shape as the peridiolum, and 
a sporophore like that in Fig. 151, more highly magnified. Two peri- a . F 
diola with their funiculi are cut through the middle; a third Iying COntinues relatively small, and is densely 
between them is cut through on the outside only. Meaningofthe Filled at the time of maturity with some- 
what long spores. Two to four spores are 
formed on each of the basidia, which, with 
the paraphyses, form a dense hymenial layer lining the cavity. The constituents of 
the hymenial layer become thick-walled after they have produced the spores and form 
a stout palisade layer round the cavity, and this is again invested by the still harder 
thick outer wall of the peridiole, into the structure of which we must not enter further 
in this place. 
From the accounts which we possess it seems certain that the course of the develop- 
ment of the compound sporophore is similar in the genera Cyathus and Nidularia 
to that here described in the case of Crucibulum, the only exception being that in 

