CHAPTER V.—COMPARATIVE REVIEW.—BASIDIOMYCETES. 335 
on all specimens. We can arrive at no certainty in the matter without a complete 
account of their development and especially of their germination. 
Corda’ has described a Fungus growing on old pine-wood under the name of 
Ptychogaster albus, a round body of the size of a hazel-nut or even much larger, which 
has the appearance of a Lycoperdon and is white when young, but when the spores 
are ripe is of the colour of a brown clay. Its structure, however, is not that of a 
Lycoperdon. It consists at first of a loose soft weft of hyphae, which radiate for the 
most part from a more dense basal portion, their free sterile extremities terminating 
in the periphery. The hyphae have many transverse septa and clamp-connections 
at the septa. The spores are formed in the interior on the hooked or spirally twisted 
ends of the branches of the hyphae ; these branches are converted into mucilage when 
the spores are developed and disappear, so that the brown spore-dust lies among the 
decaying remains of the hyphae. According to Tulasne? the spores are formed in 
large numbers as round lateral protuberances on the filaments and in no fixed order ; 
according to Cornu® the twisted hyphae break up each into a single row of spores. 
Tulasne compares this Fungus to Pilacre Petersii, Berk. et Br.and Onygena faginea, 
Fr. and suspects it to be a 
gonidial form of an Ascomycete, 
mentioning especially Poronia. 
E. Fries* on the contrary con- 
siders Ptychogaster to be a mon- 
strous product of Polyporus 
borealis, and Cornu thinks this 
probable on account of the clamp- 
connections which are so common 
in the Hymenomycetes. F. Lud- 
wig® has in fact recently found 
specimens of Ptychogaster which 
had a hymenium of Polyporus on 
the under side, the side towards 
the substratum. The elements of 
the hymenium appeared to spring 
directly from those of the Ptycho- 
gaster, and no similar form of Fic. 162. Nyctalis asterophora, Fr. 4 a young specimen, in vertical 
Polyporus Was found is the SE eae see nes Ae a 2 Bonar Sg 
cinity. No more is stated, and caripe chlamydospore. 4 slightly magnified, 5 and c magn. 390 times. 
careful artificial cultivation only 
can show whether the two forms really belong to the same species, which Ludwig 
names Polyporus Ptychogaster, or whether it is a case of cohabitation of two 
species, or parasitism. 
The ‘conidia’ reported by Richon *in Hydnum Erinaceus and Corticium dubium 
require more thorough investigation in all points. 
I have elsewhere’ represented the occurrence of two kinds of spores in the 
sporophores of Fries’ Nyctalis asterophora as belonging to the cases which we are 
considering here. The sporophores of this Fungus are developed in the same way 
as in the gymnocarpous Agaricineae. The loose air-containing weft of delicate 



1 Icon. II, p. 23. 
2 Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 5, IV, p. 290, and XV, p. 228, t. 12. 
3 Bull. Soc. bot. de France, XXIII, p. 362. 
* Summa Veg. Scand. p. 564. 
5 Zeitschr. f. d. gesammten Naturwiss. 53 (1880), p. 424, tt. 13, 14. 
® Bull. Soc. bot. de France, 1881, p. 180. 
” Bot. Ztg. 1859, p. 385. 
