. Fungi; their nature and uses. Fungi. 30 FUNGI. perforated in every direction with minute elongated, reticulated, anastomosing, labyrinthiform cavities. The resemblance of these to the tubes of Boleti in an early stage of growth, first led me to suspect that there must be some very close connection between them. If a very thin slice now be taken, while the mass is yet firm, and before there is the slightest indication of a change of colour, the outer stratum of the walls of these cavities is found to consist of pellucid obtuse cells, placed parallel to each other like the pile of velvet, exac
. Fungi; their nature and uses. Fungi. 30 FUNGI. perforated in every direction with minute elongated, reticulated, anastomosing, labyrinthiform cavities. The resemblance of these to the tubes of Boleti in an early stage of growth, first led me to suspect that there must be some very close connection between them. If a very thin slice now be taken, while the mass is yet firm, and before there is the slightest indication of a change of colour, the outer stratum of the walls of these cavities is found to consist of pellucid obtuse cells, placed parallel to each other like the pile of velvet, exactly as in the young hymenium of an Agaric or Boletus. Occasionally one or two filaments cross from one wall to another, and once I have seen these anastomose. At a more advanced stage of growth, four little spicules are developed at the tips of the sporo- phores, all of which, as far as I have been able to observe, are fertile and of equal height, and on each of these spicules a globose spore is seated. It is clear that we have here a structure identical with that of the true Hy- menomycetes, a circumstance which accords well with the fleshy habit and mode of growth. There is some diffi- culty in ascertaining the exact struc- ture of the species just noticed, as the fruit-bearing cells, or sporophores, are very small, and when the spicules are developed the substance becomes so flaccid that it is difficult to cut a proper slice, even with the sharpest lancet. I have, however, satisfied myself as to the true structure by repeated observations. But should any difficulty arise in verifying it in the species in question, there will be none in doing so in Lycoperdon gigantewm. In this species the fructifying mass consists of the same sinuous cavities, which are, however, smaller, so that the substance is more com- pact, and I have not seen them traversed by any filaments. In an early stage of growth, the surface of the hymenium, that is of the walls of the cavities, consists of shor
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