of the Lichens and Fungi. 115 



ment. The globule or conceptacle which produces theui is im- 

 bedded iu the thallus of the Lichen, commonly beneath an ob- 

 scure point or a prominence which reveals its presence. Some- 

 times it possesses special walls, and may be extricated entire from 

 the tissue in which it seems to grow as a foreign and parasitic 

 body (for example, in Parmelia physodes) ; more frequently it is 

 intimately connected with the parenchyma of the Lichen, and its 

 form only marked there by its peculiar colour. In other Lichens 

 it is divided into a number of loculi, sinuous cavities, by various 

 processes, or more or less perfect partitions. Whatever may be 

 the internal organization, it opens on the surface by a rounded 

 pore, little converging slits or irregular chinks. 



The corpuscles which emerge through these orifices originate 

 like acrogenous spores, isolated or twin, upon the cells which 

 form the internal walls of the globule, or laterally from monili- 

 form filaments, or various processes lining the cavity. Sometimes 

 a long filament, which becomes divided into a variable number 

 of corpuscles, becomes developed in place of one of these cor- 

 puscles. This genesis has nothing really in common with that 

 of the spermatozoids, which all originate in the interior of special 

 cells, from which they disentangle themselves soon after their 

 exit from the antheridium. But the circumstance that approxi- 

 mates the corpuscles in question to true spermatozoids is their 

 equal tenuity ; for, with a thickness which appears scarcely equal 

 to a thousandth of a millimetre, the majority measure not less 

 than three thousandths of a millimetre in length ; some are eight 

 or ten times as long, but no thicker. 



Taking into consideration the whole of the characters presented 

 by these point-like conceptacles, which I propose to call spermo- 

 goni, one would be inclined to regard them as foreign bodies on 

 the Lichen, as parasites upon its thallus, analogous to the Sep- 

 toria, Phyllosticta, and other minute Fungi which live upon 

 fading leaves, aware of course that these latter possess an orga- 

 nization almost identical with that just described. Yet there 

 will be hesitation in deciding thus, when it is recollected how fre- 

 quent these spermogoni are on the thallus of almost all Lichens, a 

 frequency sometimes so great as to exclude all normal organs of 

 fructification (I have seen examples in Endocarpon fluviatile and 

 E. hepaticum) ; that is to say, if the ascigerous apothecia alone 

 deserve this name. The examples furnished by Verrucaria and 

 analogous genera have also much weight on the question. It 

 may be ascertained in V. atomaria, that its apothecia, when ob- 

 served at a certain age, inclose at the same time and in great 

 numbers both corpuscles wholly resembling those contained in 

 the spermogoni of other Lichens, and fertile spores of the well- 

 known structure. It is further observable that the development 



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