The genera Peziza and Helvella are the principal fungi belonging to the order Elvellacei. The Pezizæ are a very numerous race, and consist of brilliantly coloured little cups, with or without stems, and more or less concave. They grow in the cooler part of the temperate zone, many show themselves in spring, and some of the largest and most beautiful appear during the melting of the snow.[61] A few are subterranean, and 128 species inhabit Great Britain, many growing on the ground, others on stumps of trees, dead sticks and timber, on living plants, damp walls, &c. They are singularly beautiful, including ‘many of the most elegant fungi, from the little white and red Peziza elegans, which is sprinkled over almost every fallen twig of the larch and other conifers; the pale toothed cups of the P. coronata, which abounds on the dead stems of herbaceous plants; the scarlet P. scutellata with its edge fringed with tawny hairs, and the graceful mouse-grey P. macropus, to the gorgeous P. coccinea, which attracts attention from its elegant form and bright colours; the more irregular, but not less brilliant P. aurantia, and the font-shaped P. acetabulum, which might form an elegant pattern for an architect or silversmith. Fifty others might be mentioned of equal pretensions to grace of form and brilliancy of colouring.’[62] Some of the genus are peculiar in their fructification, for in several plants of this group, besides asci containing eight sporidia, M. Tulasne met with cells full of eel-shaped particles like those in the Algæ, and although without motion he considered them to be analogous to the pollen of flowering plants. In the Peziza aurantia, however, the particles were staff-shaped and motile. The genus Helvella may be regarded as Peziza with the cup inverted; consequently, it assumes the character of a pileus or hat, like a common mushroom, though often very different in shape, and, instead of spore-bearing gills, it has asci containing eight sporidia sunk in its fleshy texture. The pileus is ovate or mitre-shaped in some species and the margin free, in others it is more or less attached to the stem. When the pileus and stem are perfectly soldered together, we get the club-shaped species of the group. Some obscure forms of this group, forming the genus Ascomycetes, cause the leaves of the peach, walnut, and pear to blister. They consist of little more than asci, accompanied by short necklace-shaped thread. The Morchella esculenta, which is the morel, is so plentiful in some parts of England, that it is used for making katsup; while the Cyttaria, which is indigenous in the southern hemisphere, is the staple food of the Fuegians during many months of the year; its subgelatinous consistence indicates a nutritious principle. This species has the peculiarity of growing upon living branches, after the manner of the jelly-like fungus of the juniper.