256 M. C COOKE, NOTES ON POD1SOMA. 



taken notion of the affinities of this little group occurs in the Hand- 

 book published by Bonorden in 1851.* 



In this work Podisoma (including Gymnosporanginm) is classed 

 with Dacrymyces and Coryne in the first family of the order Tremel- 

 lini. The older botanists took their characters from external ap- 

 pearances, but Bonorden had access to microscopes, such as were 

 unknown at the time of Bulliard, Persoon, Dickson, and Withering, 

 and the grouping of these fungi as he has done cannot be excused 

 on the ground of ignorance of structure, but of a misconception of 

 their affinities. 



Tulasne showed, in his communication to the Academy of Sciences, j - 

 that the affinities of the special vegetation of the bilocular spores 

 of Podisoma were with those of JEcidium, Uredo, Puccinia, and 

 Phragmidium. In a note to his memoir on the Tremellini, he has 

 also expressed a most decided conviction that such are the affinities 

 of this small group. It is to this memoirj that we are greatly in- 

 debted for the details of germination in Podisoma. 



If we take a portion of the orange substance which constitutes the 

 fungoid parasite of the common juniper, during the spring, and place 

 it in a drop of water under the microscope, we shall observe that it 

 consists of a multitude of brown bilocular spores, or spore-like 

 bodies, with very long transparent peduncles. These spores, for so 

 they were long regarded, bear a striking resemblance to those of 

 some species of Puccinia, with this difference, that they are imbedded 

 in gelatine, whereas in Puccinia the clusters of spores burst through 

 the cuticle of the plant on which they grow, free of each other, or 

 when more compact than usual, not held together by a gelatinous 

 medium. 



In 1848 M. Gasparrini § showed that the bilocular spores in 

 Podisoma fuscum did not deserve the unqualified designation of 

 spores, although they certainly germinated ; but he held that 

 the spores of the fungus owed their origin to a special con- 

 densation of the plastic matter contained in the germ filaments 

 (budelli) emitted by the so-called spores. This announcement 

 was by no means favourably received by mycologists at the time 



* Bonorden, Handbuch der Allgrmeinen Mykologie, pp. 148. 



t Comptes Rendus, 2* 1 June, 1853. 



X Tulasne, Annates des Sciences Nature] les, 3rd Ser., Vol. xix. (18E3 , pp. 

 193-2 26. 



§ Gasparrini in Rendiconto dellse reale Accad. delJse Sci. di Napo i. No. 41, 

 Sept. Oct. 1848. 



