240—THE PODAXINEAE. 
This tribe is characterized, by having a stalk continuous to the 
apex of the peridium forming an axis. Some of the plants are short 
stalked, some long stalked. The tribe forms a natural connecting 
link between the Gastromycetes and Agarics. Thus Podaxon is a true 
Gastromycetes with capillitia mixed with spores. Cauloglossum is 
close to Hymenogasters, with its permanent gleba chambers. Secotium 
is only a step from Cauloglossum the tramal plates not forming such 
firm cells. Gyrophragmium is Secotium with the plates more sinuate- 
lamellate, and Montagnites, which is usually placed with the Agarics, 
is only a Gyrophragmium with the plates truly lamellate. 
KEY TO THE GENERA. 
Gleba with irregular, persistent chambers. 
Peridium, elongated club-shaped.Cauloglossum. 
Peridium, round or conical, (*). Secotium. 
Gleba with sinuate-lamellate plates.Gyrophragmium. 
Walls of gleba chambers not persistent.Podaxon. 
241—CAULOGLOSSUM TRANSVERSARIUM. 
(Plate 12.) 
The genus Cauloglossum is represented by a single known 
species. The other species bearing the name in the early botanical 
works belong to Podaxon, a very different genus. The only species 
grows in our Southern States, and was little known until last year 
(1902), when a very full and excellent account was written by J. R. 
Johnston (f). The genus with its prominent columella and permanent 
gleba cells seems to me to stand next to Secotium, from which it 
differs in its texture and in the thin, irregularly ruptured peridium. 
Cauloglossum transversarium grows only in moist situations in 
. our Southern States (J). The plants are club-shape or broadly oblong, 
and have a short stalk which is prolonged as a broad columella to the 
apex of the plant. Externally they are smooth, dark brown, inter¬ 
nally “ gamboge yellow when young, becoming dirty olive brown,” 
(Thaxter). 
The peridium is simple, thin, smooth, and “ ruptures irregularly 
and indefinitely exposing the chambers of the glebe underneath. In 
some mature specimens is even more or less evanescent, the exposure 
of the gleba chambers giving a honeycombed appearance to the entire 
surface,” (Johnston). The gleba of an olive color is composed of 
small, permanent chambers, similar to those of Rhizopogon. The 
spores are elliptical, smooth. 3x8 mic., light brown color, almost 
transparent under high power. 
This distinction between Cauloglossum and Secotium is not satisfactory. The difference 
between the genera, to my mind, is one of texture hard to express in words. Cauloglossum is 
close to Rhizopogon as to texture of gleba, Secotium more closely related to Gyrophragmium. 
Besides, the thin, friable peridium of Cauloglossum is different from the persistent peridium of 
Secotium. 
(f) Proc. Am. Acad. Arts and Sciences, July, 1902. 
(X) Prof. Thaxter (1897), found it “ abundantly growing out of the bases of living or dead 
trees, or upon rotten stumps or fallen logs, or among rubbish on the ground close by.” Thos. F. 
Wood (1880), sent a number of specimens to Prof Ellis, and wrote: “It grows along the moist 
margin of a mill pond near Wilmington, N. C., in a loamy soil under the undergrowth. They are 
quite common. I found the remains of many of them in a semi-liquid state.” 
1ST 
