 Spongiforma further resembles Austroboletus and Porphyrellus species in the cellular structure of the cap cuticle ( pileipellis ) . The arrangement , known as a trichodermium , features the outermost hyphae emerging roughly parallel , like hairs , perpendicular to the surface of the fruit body . The trichodermium comprises chains of short , cylindrical to somewhat moniliform cells ( resembling a string of beads ) with terminal ( end ) cells that are cylindrical to club @-@ shaped . This cellular arrangement is similar to that present in the sterile edges of the tissues that demarcate the locules in Spongiforma . According to Desjardins and colleagues , this may represent vestiges of what was once cap cuticle or peridial tissue in an ancestor . Spongiforma is the only genus of the Boletales that forms above @-@ ground fruit bodies that lack a peridium and have many exposed locules lined with basidia that do not forcibly discharge spores . 
