332 INTRODUCTION TO CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



cerned. As regards geographical distribution they are found 

 wherever true Sphcerice exist. We have them, for instance, in 

 the extreme hmits of the arctic and antarctic vegetation, and 

 in every intermediate temperate region ; nor are they wanting 

 in tropical climes. I have, for example, Pestalozzia from the 

 Deccan. Such productions are, however, so seldom gathered 

 by travellers that we really are scarcely in a condition to form 

 a proper estimate. In New Zealand several species have 

 turned up. They swarm in South and North Carolina. 

 Aschersonia appears to be peculiarly tropical, occurring in 

 Southern India, Ceylon, St. Domingo, Tahiti, &c.; but it has 

 quite the air of being an altered form of Hypocrea. The 

 same species of Phoma appears on the bleached wood of the 

 extreme Arctic regions, and on exposed pahngs in Northamp- 

 tonshire. Some of the species, though small, are extremely 

 destructive to vegetation, especially species of Septoria, which 

 spmetimes occur on leaves or fruit in such abundance as to 

 exhaust their vitality. The greater part, however, grow only 

 on dead or dying organic productions, and therefore merely 

 act a part in reducing effete organisms to a condition in 

 which they may again take their part in the cycle of pro- 

 duction and reproduction. 



V. Gasteromycetes, Fr. 



Mycelium gelatinous, floccose, or cellular, giving rise to a 

 distinct often stipitate peridium, consisting of one or more 

 coats, inclosing free or compacted threads or laminse, from 

 which the spores spring, and in the most highly organised 

 genera a distinct though convolute hymenium. Spores naked, 

 or very rarely surrounded by a cyst, but then springing from 

 the tip of the fertile thread. 



