INTRODUCTION TO CRTPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



333 





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Myxogastres. — Whole plant at first gelatinous. Peridium 



containing at length a dusty mass of 



threads and spores. 

 Trichogastres. — Plant at first cellular. Hymenium drying 



up and leaving a dusty mass of threads 



and spores. 



Nidulariacei. — Peridium inclosing one or more distinct 

 free or stipitate sporangia, which contain a 

 mass of cells, of which the central ones 

 produce spores or sporophores. 



PhaMoidei. — Hymenium passing into a diffluent mass. 



Hypogcei. — Subterraneous ; naked, or invested with a con- 

 fluent or very rarely a distinct peridium. 



Podaxinei. — Stipitate, subclavasform; hymenium convolute, 

 inclosed in a volvalike peridium, withering 

 or entirely drying up so as to form a dusty 

 mass. 



357. We have now arrived at one of the most important 

 divisions of Fungi, containing many of the most curious and 

 beautiful productions of the order, though not equal in dignity 

 to the Hymenomycetes. As the name implies, the fructifica- 

 tion is essentially produced within the surrounding tissues, and 

 it is only in the most highly organised that an approach is 

 made to the Hymenomycetous type. A large portion are 

 remarkable for the drying up of the hjrmenial tissues to such 

 an extent, that the cavity contains a dusty mass of spores 

 mixed more or less with threads, or the shrivelled remains of 

 the constituent tissues, but this is not without exceptions ; in 

 the Nidulariacei, the hymenial cells are always closely com- 

 pacted, and in the Phalloidei they are mixed with or resolved 

 iuto mucilage, so as to drip down from the hymenium. Some, 

 again, are of a fleshy consistence when young ; whUe others, in 

 an early stage of growth, exhibit little more than an appa- 

 rently inorganised mass of pulpy matter. In one or two 

 genera, the cells of particular parts connected with the spores 

 exhibit beautiful spiral threads, which in Trichia are fre- 

 quently branched. In Batarrea (Fig. 5, a, b), the spiral is 

 loose and easily distinguished ; while, on the contrary, in 



