Mutinies caninus ( Huds .), Fr. 353 
i there is a broad mass of gelatinous tissue, horse-shoe shaped 
in section ; it is the gelatinous layer of' the volva, and has 
already been described as making its way downward in the 
loose tissue L and keeping close to the cortical layer. Now 
it quite encloses on the top and sides the central mass of 
tissue, in which important developmental changes are in 
progress. Although the question must be left unanswered, 
it may be asked if the function of this gelatinous layer is not 
protective ? 
On the opposite side of i — at H — the young basidia of the 
hymenium are forming. A cluster of these basidia from near 
the point indicated by the end of the line from H is shown in 
Fig. 6. As nearly as I could determine, the hyphae which 
give rise to the basidia are composed of short cells, the cross- 
septa of which do not show very distinctly, however, in my 
preparations. From each of these cells an outgrowth occurs 
which may form one of the swollen basidial cells, or may 
become septate, like the hypha from which it arises, and then 
give rise to a cluster of basidia. The latter is more likely to 
occur when the outgrowth originates at some distance from 
the palisade-like layer, in which the young basidia stand side 
by side. The tramal connexions of the basidia are towards 
the dense zone i and the apex of the column R. 
In Fig. 6, the intermediate tissue A , lying between the 
hymenial layer H and the stipe, has been separated from 
the tramal tissue through the formation of the basidia. In 
Fig. 5, the tramal tissue and intermediate tissue are in con- 
nexion at several points where basidia have not yet formed. 
In the preceding stage intermediate portions of the hyphae 
were swollen with protoplasm in the region where the hyme- 
nium was developing. The conditions there, taken in con- 
nexion with those of the present and with those of later stages 
to be described, seem to indicate that the ready separation 
from, and pushing away of, the intermediate tissue A by the 
forming basidia may be favoured by atrophy of the hyphal 
connexions with that tissue. In a slightly later stage the 
separation becomes more complete (Fig. 8). 
