No. 3.] HYMENIALES OF CONNECTICUT. II 



HYMENIALES (Hymenomycetineae). 



HYMENIUM OR MEMBRANE FUNGI. 



The Hymeniales are members of a large class of Fungi 

 whose reproductive bodies, or spores, arise from cells of defi- 

 nite shape, known as basidia. Because of these basidial cells 

 these fungi are classed as Basidiomycetes. These basidia 

 are microscopic, and are usually more or less club-shaped, with 

 lateral branches, known as sterigmata, extending from the 

 larger end. Within the basidia two nuclei unite, and, upon 

 subsequent division, each portion of the divided nucleus passes 

 through the sterigmata into a developing basidiospore. 



In Hymeniales, the sterigmata are usually four in number 

 on each basidium, but in some species there may be two, six, 

 or eight, each bearing at the tip the reproductive body or spore. 

 These spores, upon germination, reproduce the particular 

 species of fungi upon which they were borne. 



In the higher orders of Basidiomycetes, as in Hymeniales, 

 these basidia are borne upon a more or less conspicuous fruit- 

 ing-body, or sporophore, which constitutes the visible portion 

 of what is commonly spoken of as the mushroom, or fleshy 

 fungus. The older writers did not include in Basidiomycetes 

 the lower orders, such as Ustilaginales and Uredinales, be- 

 cause of the absence of the complex fruit-body, but careful 

 research by later scientists has proved the development of the 

 spore from the union of the nuclei of the basidia ; this fact has 

 seemed to some writers to justify their classification as lower 

 forms of Basidiomycetes. 



Because of the varying methods of nuclear fusion in the 

 basidial cells, their subsequent division and subdivision, and 

 the further development of the sporophore, or fruit-body, 

 this class is sometimes divided into four sub-classes : Hemi- 



BASIDIOMYCETES, yEciDIOMYCETES, PrOTOBASIDIOMYCETES, and 



Eubasidiomycetes. In Hemibasidiomycetes are included 

 such plants as the wheat and corn smuts, and in ^Ecidiomy- 

 cetes the various rusts affecting agricultural crops. The Pro- 



