1 84 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



and in these cases the process differs only in matters of 

 minor detail from that which takes place in Achlya. 

 In the genus Peziza, according to Corda 1 , the following 

 phenomena may be observed. The contents of the 

 mother-cells, or spore-cases, consist originally of .a 

 mucus-like substance through which are diffused a num- 

 ber of granules though there are, at first, no traces of 

 cells or nuclei. In the midst of this uniformly granular 

 material, within the spore-case ofPeziza acetakulum, there 

 appears, after a time, a row of globular-looking bodies, 

 ranged at regular distances, which are spoken of by 

 Corda as drops of oil. These, however, are probably 

 mucilaginous nuclei 2 , judging from their relation to 



originate without the presence of a previous mother cell. It is a ques- 

 tion, for instance, whether cells are ever formed in Phaenogams from 

 mere organizable sap, as presumed by Mirbel (Ann. des Sc. Naturelles, 

 Second Series, vol. xi. p. 321) in his paper on the Date Palm; or again, 

 whether, in what is called organizable lymph in the animal world, cells 

 can originate freely, without pullulation from neighbouring tissue 

 with which the lymph is in contact. . . . Now in those fungi in which, 

 as in Spheria and Peziza, the reproductive bodies are generated by the 

 endochrome of the fructifying cells, the Cryptogamist has the power of 

 watching the development of the spores from the very moment when 

 the endochrome commences to be organized, and he can with confidence 

 assert that they are not the creatures of previously existing cells, but 

 the produce of the endochrome itself. He will be able to compare with 

 this what takes place in the embryo sac of Phsenogams, and will 

 be better prepared to appreciate all the arguments which bear upon 

 the Schleidenian Theory of the formation of the Embryo.' (' Intro- 

 duction to Cryptogamic Botany,' Lond. 1857, p. 25). 

 1 ' Icones Fungorum.' 



The nuclei seem to be produced in this case after a fashion similar 

 to that by which the nuclei of the common water-net (Hydrodictyon) 

 originate. The process is a most important one, and we are inclined to 



