322 DIVISION II.—COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 
It is probable, as Brefeld suggests, that these coils and funiculi, thus provided with 
slimy mucilage and capable of being drawn out into strands, are contrivances for the 
dissemination of the peridiola by animals and for furthering the germination of the 
spores. That there is no spontaneous dehiscence of the peridiola is in favour of this 
view, but the course of the events which would in that case come under consideration 
is not yet known. 
(5) The development of the compound sporophores of the Phalloideae has been 
studied exactly in Phallus (P.impudicus and P. caninus) and Clathrus. They first appear 
in Phallus (Fig. 153) as ellipsoid swellings about ı mm. high on the mycelial strands, 
and consist at first of a uniform compact weft containing air and formed of very 
delicate (primordial) hyphae. In specimens of larger growth (Fig. 153 z, v) this is 
differentiated into a dome-shaped central column rising vertically from the point of 
insertion, a bell-shaped layer of felted gelatinous tissue enveloping the column, 
gelatinous layer, and a white membrane, outer wall of the peridium, which sur- 
rounds the gelatinous layer and passes at the point of insertion into the central 
column. The two last named parts consist of primordial tissue.. While the whole 
sporophore as it increases in size becomes more narrowly ovoid in form, and the outer 
wall and the gelatinous layer grow in circumference and thickness, though their 
structure remains the same, the central column acquires the form of a globular head 
supported on a cylindrical stipe. Its primordial tissue at first homogeneous is at the 
same time differentiated into the gleda, the receptaculum of the gleba, which is peculiar 
to the Phalloideae, and in the present case is a simple fusiform s/zde, and a white 
membrane surrounding the other two parts (Fig. 153 w, x). This membrane forms 
the zznermost layer of the wall of the peridium, which consists therefore of three 
concentric layers, the outer and inner white membranes which unite at the base, and 
the much broader gelatinous layer lying between the two. The gleba lies in the upper 
capitate portion of the central column in the form of a thick horizontal ring, which is 
semicircular on the transverse section and is surrounded on the outside by the inner 
wall of the peridium, while its inner surface rests on a conical axile portion of the 
central column. This portion, which may be briefly termed the cone, passes through 
the whole of the gleba up to the summit of the column. The structure of the gleba is 
the same as in the Hymenogastreae and Lycoperdäceae but without coils; its chambers 
are very numerous and narrow, and the trama when somewhat advanced in its 
development consists of soft gelatinous tissue with laminae which spring on one 
side from the inner wall of the peridium, on the other from the cone. The outer- 
most zone of the cone bordering on the gleba separates early in Phallus impudicus 
from the inner tissue, forming a distinct layer, and becoming ultimately the free conical 
‘pileus ’ which carries the gleba. In Ph. caninus this separation does not take place. 
The stipe is at first a very narrowly, afterwards a more broadly fusiform body which 
runs through the longitudinal axis of the entire central column from its apex to its 
base. In its earliest condition it is a transparent band and is distinguished from the 
white primordial tissue, which contains air, solely by the absence of air from its 
interstices. As growth proceeds, the uniform hyphal tissue becomes differentiated 
into an axile tissue-strand and a peripheral layer, the wall of the stipe. The latter 
consists of laminae of a round-celled pseudo-parenchyma, which unite together, like 
those of the gleba, to form one layer (Ph. caninus) or several layers (Ph. impudicus) 
of closed chambers. The chambers are large, but so much compressed from above 
downwards, that the breadth of their interior space is scarcely equal to the thickness 
of their walls; the walls themselves are much twisted and folded. The chambers 
are filled with a soft gelatinous felt and the axile strand of the stipe is formed of a 
like felt. The wall-of the stipe at its upper extremity has only deep pit-like folds 
in its surface, no chambers being formed in the interior. The stipe when once formed 
increases greatly in size, the parenchyma of its wall enlarging by simple expansion 
of its cells from the moment that it is distinctly differentiated. The growth of the 
