182 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
were growing upon dead stumps of Cephalanthus occidentalis L. 
Although this fungus does not belong to the class of Basidiomycetes 
which were under especial investigation in the preparation of this 
paper, namely, the woody and encrusting species of the Thelepho- 
raceae, Hydnaceae, and Polyporaeeae, its peculiar structure gave 
rise to the hope that it might possess conidia; so it was cultivated, 
and its life history carefully followed out. The mycelia bore chlamy- 
dospores in abundance, but no conidia; the latter were formed, 
however, upon the young veil and about the margin of the growing 
pileus. Typical fructifications in abundance were produced in 
cultures together with many abnormalities which, however, generally 
retained the essential peculiarities of the Lentodium type. A full 
discussion of the structure and development of the fructification is 
included in the present paper, since these are so unusual as to seem to 
merit a more extensive description than has yet been given. 
Description oj fructification .— The mature fructification (pi. 23, 
fig. 126) is umbilicate, semiorbicular, with the margin of the pileus 
curved downward and inward toward the stipe in most specimens. 
The pileus varies from one to four centimeters in diameter and from 
three to eight millimeters in thickness. The texture is tough and 
fleshy-coriaceous when fresh, but becomes hard and woody when dry. 
Small, dark-colored, hairy scales cover the pileus, and color its surface 
brownish gray to rufous verging to blackish toward the center. The 
stipe varies considerably in length, and is central in perfect specimens; 
it is tough, solid, fibrous, confluent with and of the same texture as the 
hymenophore, and frequently scaly like the pileus. A thick stratum 
of tubes and chambers (pi. 24, fig. 131), lined with the basidiosporic 
hymenium, descends from the hymenophore and is adnate to and 
decurrent upon the stipe. The tubes branch and anastomose irregu¬ 
larly, and are traversed by veins and divided into chambers by septa. 
There is frequently a more or less clearly defined radial arrangement 
of chambers, and some of them may also be elongated radially, par¬ 
ticularly in the region of the stipe (pi. 23, fig. 127), but free gills are 
never present, and in many specimens absolutely no trace of gill 
arrangement is discernible. 
The mouths of the chambers are usually closed by a white, floccu- 
lent weft of hyphae which arise from the trama (pi. 23, fig. 127; pi. 
24, fig. 132). In growing specimens this veil is thin and the pore is 
faintly discernible; at maturity it becomes much thicker and firmer 
