TRUFFLES. 303 



cf other fungi, — in the mushroom, as an example, it is the 

 mushroom spawn, — while the veins, the reproductive 

 parts, contain in their cellular tissue minute ovoid capsules, 

 with two or more globular yellowish seeds ; this curious 

 structure having all the parts of nutrition and reproduction 

 enclosed internally, instead of externally, as in other fungi. 



Truffles are produced in this way : the mycelium quickly 

 decays and allows the fungoid body to grow on in an 

 isolated condition. About September the ground becomes 

 covered with numerous white cylindrical articulated fila- 

 ments, not visible singly to the unassisted eye, but by 

 their immense numbers and rapid growth readily seen, 

 and found traversing the soil in every direction. These 

 white flaxen threads are continuous with other flocculent 

 filaments of the same nature. In the young truffles the 

 external layer is gradually consolidated, and in a short 

 time the destruction of the flocculent filaments are com- 

 plete and lost in the young plant, which is soon isolated 

 in the soil, and then the outer or cortical coat hardens, 

 and ultimately has the appearance of a small nut. Thus, 

 like other fungi, truffles are reproduced by spores, which 

 give origin to filamentous mycelium and seed-vessels, the 

 source of numerous offspring. Groups of spores are pretty 

 objects ; their stellate appearance reminds one of the 

 Xanthidias ; the mass of the full-grown plant at particular 

 seasons is almost wholly made up of these bodies, which 

 are of a yellowish-brown colour. 



In these plants we have a double system of laminated 

 filaments ; one set arising from the cortical tissue absorb- 

 ing the surrounding moisture and serving to transmit this 

 to the cells in which the spores are formed, being there- 

 fore the organs of nutrition ; the others white and opaque, 

 terminating externally also, but conveying air to all part3 

 of the body, and bringing the whole into contact with 

 sporigenous cells. 



The spores are developed freely in the vesicular cells 

 destined to produce them. They are limited in number 

 in each vesicle; less than two is never seen in one vesicle; 

 the hexagonal basket-work arrangement of each seed ap- 

 pears to close with a lid, and ten or twelve short spines 

 project out from every point. 



