LYMAN: STUDIES OF HYMENOMYCETES. 
159 
however, where the Corticium chances to lie uppermost, Michenera 
cups may appear rising directly from the hymenium, not as if break¬ 
ing through from below like a foreign fungus, but actually fused with 
the tissue of the Corticium whose hymenium overruns the bases and 
sides of the cups. It was doubtless such specimens as this that Pa- 
touillard had before him when he asserted that the Michenera is a 
conidial form of the Corticium. This presumption is strengthened by 
an experiment performed by Dr. Thaxter, the results of which he has 
made known to the writer. He reversed the position of several 
branches, bringing the Corticium uppermost, and found that this 
change was frequently followed by liberal production of Michenera 
cups arising from the hymenium (pi. 26, fig. 137). This was true 
even in specimens which did not originally show any Michenera fruc¬ 
tifications (pi. 26, fig. 137, lower figure). This line of proof, how¬ 
ever, does not absolutely demonstrate the organic connection of the 
two fungi, and conclusive evidence must come from culture study 
where the complete life history can be followed out. 
Other species oj Michenera. — The only other representative of this 
genus is M. poroniaejormis, described in 1875 by Berkeley & Curtis 
from Ceylon. After a study of its structure and development, Massee 
(’88) decided that it has no affinity whatever with the Hymenomycetes. 
He renamed it Matula poroniaejormis, and made it the type of the 
Matuleae, a new order of Gasteromycetes, intermediate between the 
Nidulariaceae and the Hymenogastraceae. “The leading features 
of the plant are: (1) a peridium closed above by an epiphragm until 
all differentiation is completed; (2) a gleba broken up into numerous 
cavities or loculi by dissepiments bearing basidia on their free sur¬ 
faces.” The basidia are described as “very primitive in structure, 
being slightly or not at all thickened at the apex, and producing usually 
a single spore which at first appears as an obovate terminal cell attached 
by a broad base.While the spores are still young and obovate 
they are set free by the total disappearance of the basidia, afterward 
becoming spherical and increasing considerably in size.” 
It seems extremely doubtful whether the plant described above 
should be regarded as the perfect state of a Basidiomycete, for, as in 
the case of Michenera artocreas, the structural resemblances may 
be merely superficial and accidental. Until further information is at 
hand demonstrating the nature of the monosporic “basidia” which 
Massee describes, it is safer to regard them as conidiophores of a 
fungus whose perfect condition is yet unknown. 
