_Ptychogaster_ has cushion-like fruit-bodies, which consist chiefly of chlamydospore-chains, formed of ellipsoidal spores, which alternate with short hyphæ having transverse septa and clamp-connections. The hymenial portion is limited to a small group of tubes. _Pt. albus_ (_Oligorus ustilaginoides_) grows on stumps of Conifers and forms irregular cushions, at first white and later on brown, which consist almost entirely of chlamydospores. _Boletus_ (Fig. 171) has a fleshy fruit-body resembling a common Mushroom, with central stalk. The layer of tubes is easily detached from the pileus, and the tubes are easily separable from one another. They grow on the ground in woods. Edible species are: _B. edulis_, with thick, reticulate stalk; _B. scaber_, with thin stalk and rough pileus; _B. luteus_, with a ring on the stalk. _B. luridus_ is poisonous, its tubes have red openings, and the flesh turns quickly blue when broken and exposed to the air. _Fistulina hepatica_ (Beef-steak Fungus), has a red, fleshy, edible fruit-body, with red juice. The tubes are individually distinct; conidia are also developed. Grows on old Oaks. _Merulius lacrymans_ (“Dry-rot”) has a resupinate fruit-body with white, cotton-like border, and the remaining portions covered by reticulate, ramified veins of a rust-brown colour. In favourable vegetative conditions it is fleshy and exudes large drops of water--hence its specific name and also the name “Tear Fungus.” The mycelium is at first colourless, and then yellow-brown; when dry it is tough and leathery. It destroys the timber in damp houses, extends far and wide over boards and beams and even over the masonry, giving rise to a disagreeable smell in the rooms in which it lodges. In woods the Fungus lives on Pine-stems. It is brought from the forest on the logs of timber, and is distributed from log to log by the mycelium and the basidiospores. The living mycelium can be recognised by the clamp-connections shooting out branches. The basidiospores are often ejected a distance of a metre; they are elliptical (10–11µ long and 5–6µ broad), and germinate easily on damp wood, or in fruit-juice which has been neutralized with urine or alkaline carbonates. _Dædalea_ (Labyrinth Fungus), has bracket-like, corky fruit-bodies with irregularly-folded plates or discs on the under side. It forms a transition to the Agaricaceæ. _D. quercina_ is frequent on Oak-stumps. [Illustration: FIG. 171.--_Boletus edulis_ (about ¼th): _b_ longitudinal section of a portion of the pileus.]