‘ CARPOPUY 7A. 177 
striking being the Giant Puff-ball (L. giganteum), whose 
spore-fruit sometimes is 30 cm. or more (one foot) in diam- 
eter. The proper plant, that is, the vegetative 
portion, lives underground, obtaining its food 
from decaying vegetable matter. The great 
ball is a spore-fruit composed of innumerable 
filaments whose swollen extremities (basidia) 
bear spores (basidiospores). 
368. There are other genera, as the Earth- 
Fungus (Cya- 
stars (Geaster), whose outer coat splits into a {hus veipice: 
star-shaped form, the curious little Bird’s-nest ™ ‘”° 
Fungus (Crucibulum and Cyathus, Fig. pis fetid Stink-horn 
(Phallus), ete. 
Practical Studies.—(a) Collect specimens of puff-balls in various 
stages of growth. Make very thin sections of the young spore-fruit, 
and look for the cavities lined with spore-bearing cells (basidia). 
(0) Mount in aleohol some of the dust which escapes from a dry 
puff-ball. Examine with a high power, and note the spores and frag- 
ments of broken-up filaments. 
(ec) Dig up the earth under a cluster of young puff-balls, and ob- 
serve the vegetative filaments. Examine some of these filaments 
under the microscope. 
369. The Toadstools (Order Hymenomycetes).—These 
plants are doubtless to be regarded as the highest of the 
chlorophyll-less Carpophytes. They are not only of consid- 
erable size (ranging from one to twenty centimetres, or 
more, in height), but their structural complexity is so much 
greater than that of the other orders that they must be 
regarded as the highest of the fungi. Like the Puff-balls, 
they produce an abundance of vegetative filaments (myce- 
lium) underground or in the substance of decaying wood. 
These filaments are loosely interwoven, becoming in some 
cases densely felted into tough masses or compacted into 
