54 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 
THE MYCOLOGIC FLORA OF THE MIAMI VALLEY, O. 
By A. P. Morean. 
FUNGI, Linn. 
Fungi are Thallophytes which grow upon organic substances, usu- 
ally dead or decaying animal or vegetable matter,.and derive their 
nourishment from them ; they are destitute of chlorophyll, the green 
coloring matter of plants, and are therefore incapable of assimilation. 
The whole process of development of a fungus may be divided into 
two periods ; first, from the spore is produced a mycelium ; secondly, 
out of the mycelium the fructijication subsequently arises. The my- 
celium consists of filaments simple or branched, and single or variously 
associated. The mycelium creeps in or upon the substratum which 
nourishes it out of which it absorbs the useful materials. The fructi- 
fication consists of simple or branched filaments, bearing the spores at 
their extremities ; these threads are either separate and free from each 
other, or they grow closely compacted together forming a hymenium. 
The hymenium is either naked and exposed, and borne upon a recep- 
tacle, or it is inclosed in a peridium or a perithecitum. The spores are 
either produced naked at the extremities of the filaments or they arise 
inside their sac-like swollen terminal cells ; in the former case the 
supporting cell or filament takes the name of basidium, in the latter it 
is called an ascus. 
TABLE-OF CLASSES OF BUNGE 
A, Spores naked. 
a. Hymenium present. 
1. HymMENomycETES.—Hymenium free, mostly naked or soon exposed. 
2. GASTEROMYCETES.—Hymenium inclosed in a peridium, which is 
ruptured when mature. 
b. Hymenium absent. 
3. CONIOMYCETES.—Spores mostly terminal on inconspicuous threads. 
4, HypHoMYycETES.—Spores on conspicuous threads. 
B. Spores contained in asci. 
5. PaysomycerEes.—Fertile cells seated on threads not compacted 
into a hymenium. 
6. AscomycerEs.—Asci formed from the fertile cells of a hymenium. 
