The order Phalloidei has a club-shaped or globose head, composed in the interior of large cells mixed with fruit-bearing cavities. This head has a coat consisting of a jelly inclosed between two heterogeneous strata. The whole interior of the fungus deliquesces, changes to a mucilage, and drips out of the exterior coat in drops dark with microscopic spores. The colour of these fungi is often beautiful, but their smell is most loathsome, tainting the air to a considerable distance; yet the gelatinous volva of more than one species—an Ileodictyon—is eaten by the New Zealanders under the name of thunder dirt, and Phallus Mokusin is an article of food in China. Certain species of these fungi have a rudimentary stem in their early stages, but it becomes full of deep pits or cavities and suddenly acquires an enormous development when the plant approaches maturity. The cavities are at first strongly compressed, but as the stem increases, they acquire a rounder form, till at length their vertical tendency is so strong that the coat or volva of the fungus is ruptured, which could only be effected by a very strong force. Moreover, the stem is fixed to the base by so small a point that the plant could not remain erect were it not for the tubes of the volva which contract on the stem and act as a sustaining force. Thus these very revolting fragile plants afford a very striking instance of mechanical power exerted by vegetable matter. The Myxogastres are an anomalous group of fungi which often appear as black or coloured spots on dead leaves and twigs. Sometimes their mycelium or spawn is large and conspicuous, as that of the Reticularia maxima, which overruns cucumber beds, choking up the breathing pores, and killing the plants. Species of these fungi are found upon mineral and vegetable substances dead and alive, and the same species grows upon plants of very different affinities, so that they depend upon the atmosphere for their nourishment, and not on their matrix. Like the puff-balls they end their lives in myriads of microscopic dust spores, but they begin it as a gelatinous mass, sometimes sparkling as a gem, brilliant with the metallic tints of gold, silver, steel, or copper.