British Fuiiori. 



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vegetative part, and the erect bypli^e bearing chains 

 of spores at their tips are the sporophores. From 

 the above examples it will be seen that the sporophore 

 jn-esents great variety in form and stracture, con- 

 sisting in the one instance of a single erect hypha 

 bearing a few spores at its summit, whereas in the 

 other, dense, diSerentiated tissues enter into its com- 

 position. The sporophore is tbe part that is popularly 

 considered as constituting the entire fungus, the 

 vegetative portion, as already stated, being usually 

 hidden in the substance upon wliich the sporophore 

 appears. From what has already been stated, it will 

 be seen that division of labour is well marked in fungi, 

 as illustrated by the presence of mycelium and sporo- 

 phore, but it is important to remember that this 

 division is not so strougly defined throughout the 

 fungi as in the examples given. In the Saprolegniesef 

 a group of microscopic fungi met with in the tissues 

 of plants or animals, tbe thin liyph^e ramif}^ in the 

 tissues of the host, and eventually form reproductive 

 bodies, the equivalents of sporophores, from single 

 termiual or intercalary cells of the mycelium. Now this 

 arrangement does not quite harmonize with the con- 

 ception of sharply defined vegetative and reproductive 

 parts as illustrated by the gill-bearing fungi and their 

 allies. 



From a broad point of view, the characters that 

 separate 2:)lants from animals are; (1), permanent 

 cell-walls, composed of cellulose, at least when young; 

 (2), the presence of chlorophyll, which enables plants 

 to feed on inorganic food. It is well known that 

 certain plants belonging to widely separated natural 



