Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/545

 FUNGI 533 leaves, others on flowers and fruit. They are the scourge of the farmer, whose fields the devastate. The savin trees (juniperus) are attacked by a peculiar genus (podisoma), whicl bursts from their bark and swells under the in fluence of moisture to a gelatinous mass. I also occasions the globular excrescent growtl called cedar apples, from orifices in which ii protrudes in long orange-colored spurs, formec by the spores, tipping the aggregated mass of filaments. The black, irregular scars on apples are caused by the spilocma fructigena. An ex- tensive group of this order comprises those minute pustular forms which, resembling th true ascigerous fungi in many respects, differ in producing their spores on the ends of the filaments instead of being contained in asci There is great obscurity overhanging this whol< group. They exhibit themselves in so many anomalous forms that it is almost impossible to establish limits to genera which may be clear- ly understood. Writers on the subject record great numbers of genera, but hardly any two agree upon their characters, and the whole sub- ject is burdened with an inharmonious synon- ymy. New light has been shed upon the sub- ject of later years by the observations of Berke- ley, Leveille, Tulasne, and others, who have pretty clearly established the fact that many so-called genera are merely stages of growth of true ascigerous fungi. Some genera, such as erysiphe, are known to produce several different kinds of reproductive bodies ; and Tulasne has carried his researches into this manifold fructi- fication, showing that many ascigerous species are attended by processes (pyenidia) which produce minute bodies (spermatia, stylospores) differing much from true spores, and growing beside them, sometimes within the same re- ceptacle. He shows that certain growths re- corded as distinct species of different genera and orders are, in fact, different forms of one single plant, whose perfect state is ascigerous. If such be true of the few whose progressive growth has been followed, we may safely conclude that the whole mass of coniomycetoid species, or at least those of the suborder spharonemei, may be arrested or non-developed stages of growth of higher ascigerous forms. Such being the case, the classification of this whole order of plants will one day need rearrangement. 5. Gasteromycetes (Fr.), mycelium gelatinous, floccose, or cellular, giving rise to a stalked or sessile peridium, composed of one or more coats ; the spores borne on the apices of filaments lining the interior. This includes the whole tribe of puff-balls, as well as the subterranean fungi which look like truffles, but are dusty and smutty within. The perid- ium is generally of a rounded form, cracking in various ways at maturity, and giving forth myriads of spores like a cloud of dust. In some the hymenial tissue dries up at maturity, leaving the spores free (lycoperdon) ; in others it resolves itself into a fluid which drips from the elongated receptacle (phallus). In some it retains its form, after parting with its spores, in an intricate mass of anastomosing fibres (tmchia, arcyria). The athalium, which in- lests the hotbeds of greenhouses, belongs here. Ihe earth stars (gcaster) are peculiar in the lehiscence of the outer peridium, which splits Earth Star (Geaster hygrometria). into segments and unfolds in a starry manner ; it is also very hygrometrical, unfolding or clo- sing as it is moist or dry. The little bird's nest fungus (crucilulum) is peculiar in having its spores in distinct masses at the bottom of its nest-like peridium, looking like little eggs. Sphcerobolus stellatus has the remarkable pow- er of projecting its sporangium to a great dis- tance ; the lower, internal part of the peridium is suddenly inverted at maturity, ejecting its soft sporangium, of the size of a mustard seed, several inches. The species of phallus and cla- thrus are notorious for the intolerable stench of their dissolving hymenium. 6. Hymeno- mycetes (Fr.), mycelium floccose, webby, giv- ing rise to a distinct hymenium, borne either immediately on the mycelium or on special re- ceptacles bearing the spores on gills, wrinkles, tubes, prickles, &c. Here occur the jelly- like exidice, so common on trees after rains; the branching coral-like clavarice, abounding in our woods in autumn, all of which are edi- ble ; the corky polypori, bearing their spores in minute, compacted tubes beneath the recep- tacle termed a pileus; the boleti, which re- semble the last except that they are fleshy, and of which many are eaten ; the hydna, which bear their spores on the exterior of prickle- like processes ; and, lastly, the agarici, which include the edible mushrooms and kindred forms, whose spores are borne on radiating blades beneath a cap borne up by a stem like an umbrella. Mycology, as the study of fungi "s termed, is among the most recondite of sci- mces. Among the authors whose works are of principal value are Berkeley, Bulliard, Cor- da, Desmazieres, Fries, Greville, Klotzsch, Kromholz, Leveille, Link, Montagne, Nees von Esenbeck, Persoon, Schaeffer, Schweinitz (for American species), Sowerby, Tulasne, and Vit- ire the Rev. M. A. Curtis and Mr. H. TV. Rave- el. Of special value is Cooke's " Handbook f British Fungi" (2 vols., London, 1871). Rust, Must, and Mildew," by the same au-