VICTORIA. Apollo Bay, Maits Rest, hypogeal in wet eucalyptus forest, 20 Sept. 1982, K. & G. Beaton 54. NEW ZEALAND. Wellington, Palmerston North, May 1923, Cunningham 8279. SRI LANKA. Hakgala, Dec. 1917, Fetch 5478, 5479; Mar. 1922, Petch 6437.

Gasterocarp 1-2 cm diam., subglobose or depressed, basally attached. Peridium thin, dingy white to yellowish brown, staining ferruginous on drying, glabrous, dry, smooth to rugose. Gleba cinnamon brown becoming dark brown, loculate, with small, irregular chambers, 0.5-1.5 mm diam., more elongated towards the peridium. Tramal plates up to 150 µm thick, white, consisting of a narrow hymenophoral trama and very broad subhymenial layers; clamp-connexions present on all hyphae. Sterile base absent or very minute and white. Spores statismosporic and symmetric, 14-20.5 x 6-10(18 ± l x 8± 0-5) µm (excl. myxosp.), Q = 2.25; ellipso-fusoid with a tapering apex, golden brown to fuscous brown, with a thickened wall bearing a finely rugulose exosporial ornamentation and overlaid by a loose, hyaline, membranous myxosporium which remains closely applied at the apex but becomes detached and torn around the base. Basidia 28-37 x 7-8.5 µm, elongate clavate, mostly bearing two straight sterigmata but also one or four sterigmata present; numerous immature ellipsoid basidia also present. Hymenophoral trama regular, hyaline, of inflated, parallel, very thin-walled hyphae 3-22 µm diam. Subhymenial layer very well developed, 30-45 µm wide, pseudoparenchymatous. Peridiopellis a stratified, hyaline epithelium composed of inflated, thin-walled, globose, pyriform or ellipsoid elements, 25-40 x 8-22µm.

Although described from Sri Lanka, this species is also known to occur in New Zealand, and was first reported from Victoria State by Cunningham (1944: 53). It is characterized by the calyptrate appearance of the spores resulting from the loose myxosporium becoming detached from the spore-base. The spore-form, together with the epithelial structure of the peridiopellis is very similar to the structure observed in the agaricoid genus Descolea and the gasteroid genus Setchelliogaster, and it may become necessary eventually to recognize at least two taxa within the present concept of Hymenogaster, namely those species allied to Thaxterogaster and those allied to Setchelliogaster