Wh 



307 



the' spore is ripe, the mother-cell, with its spore inside, breaks off 

 at the partition which divided it from the parent hypha, and^ 

 together with many other similar spore-containing cells, lies 

 rather loosely among the filamentous paraphyscs until carried 

 away by the wind, or perhaps by some other agent, 

 spores are fully ripe, the long, lash- like appendages of the mother- 

 cells show a tendency to curl spirally and to shrivel. It would 

 be interesting to notice whether this has anything to do with the 



dissemination of the spores. 



The spores are formed so uniformly that one may speak of 

 three distinct layers in the hymenium. First, the somewhat 

 loosely reticulated mycelium, which is overlaid by the more 

 closely compacted hyphae, from which the paraphyses and sporo- 

 phores arise; then the dense layer of spores in their flask- shaped 

 mother-cells with upward pointing flagclla. 



Since it was generally agreed to retain Michcnera Artocrcas 

 among the Hymenomycetes, an effort was made to explain the 

 presence of the flask-shaped bodies which T have just described, 

 on the supposition that they were the spores of some fungus par- 

 asitic upon a Corticium ; and this view was supported by the dis- 

 covery in other places of basidia and spores which had the same 

 appearance as the basidia and spores of a Corticium. But I find 

 no evidence that the flask-shaped bodies are the spores of a para- 

 sitic fungus, for the hyph?e which bear the spores are the same 

 in form, size and color as the ordinary mycelial liyphai of the 

 plant, and may with care be traced vertically in the body of the 



hymenium for some distance. 



Generally, in cases of fungi parasitic upon larger or more 

 complex forms, the hyphae run transversely and rather near the 

 surface of the host, and can, therefore, in sections or dissections, 

 be distinguished or even separated from the host. Such cases as 

 the Hypomyces, which grow on the larger Agaricini, present 

 this character. In Michenem, on the contrary, the spore- bear- 

 ing hyphae run approximately parallel, deep down into the hy- 

 menium, they form nothing like a sheet, and are not much re- 

 ticulated until they are near the mycelium of the plant. These 

 flask-shaped bodies can be nothing else than large conidial spores. 



If one searches in the literature, one will find in Fig. 4, Plate 



