Tasmanian Hymenogastraceae

Abstract

In the year 1911 I had the honour of reading to the Society a paper of a similar title. Since then, there have arisen reasons for additions and alterations. Our list of these forms is now so large that there appears little prospect that new species will come to light, wherefore the present appears to be a suitable time to revise the family. The Hymenogasters are small underground tubers which produce their spores on basidia, generally 2, sometimes 4 on each basidium. The characteristic of the family is that the gleba does not break down into a mass of spores and fibres as in allied tubers, such as Mesophellia, Scleroderma, Diploderma, Lycoperdon, and Geaster, but remains as a series of contorted tubes or spaces without change at maturity, till broken up by decay or eaten by an animal. The genus Secotium, however, is intermediate between the Hymenogasters and the Agarics. Formed underground it tends to emerge at maturity, and has a more or less developed sterile portion, often piercing through the gleba to the apex, and the tramal plates approach the appearance of distorted gills. Some plants may equally well be placed in one group or the other