THALLOPHYTES 91 
rapidity into a stout, hollow stalk, bursts through the peridium, and 
carries up on its summit the caplike and chambered gleba, the whole 
structure suggesting a stipe and pileus. The gleba thus exposed deli- 
quesces into a slimy, dripping mass with the odor of carrion, which 
attracts carrion flies, by whose agency the embedded spores are dispersed. 
Lichens 
The Ascomycetes, with a few exceptions, are the lichen formers (see p. 78), 
and these exceptions are basidiomycetes. These lichens are the tropical Cora 
pawnia, of loose texture, whose mycelium produces basidia at the surface, instead 
of the ordinary ascocarp, and a few related forms. 
