jO DIVISION I. — GENERAL MORPHOLOGY. 



blue directly by a watery solution of iodine. It is a matter of course that there should 

 be intermediate forms between the highly gelatinous and the non-gelatinous membranes, 

 such as are found for instance among the sclerotia. To the above-mentioned examples 

 drawn from the vegetative parts of the thallus musl be added the organs of reproduction, 

 spores and the parts which immediately produce them, — a not less rich and varied con- 

 tingent, of which more will be said in the chapters which deal with these organs. 



We know very little of the chemical composition of the gelatinous membranes 

 of the Fungi. From the few tolerably precise investigations and from analyses which 

 have been made ii seems probable that they are for the most part composed of one or 

 more carbodivdrates or mixtures of carbodiydrates nearly allied to cellulose, but with 

 great capacity for swelling. The membranes of the Lichen-fungi (Cetraria, Ramalina, 

 Usnea, and Cladonia) are changed by boiling in water into a homogeneous jelly known 

 as lichenin, the dry substance of which is isomeric with cellulose. According to 

 Nageli and Low the membranes of yeast-cells (Saccharomyces Cerevisiae), after boiling 

 repeatedly in water, pass partly into a mucilage which they term 'yeast-mucilage'; 

 the analysis of its dry substance gave a formula very near 3(C6 Hio 05)-f-H2 O. 

 When the membranes of the Lichen-fungi, especially Cetraria islandica, and of the 

 asci of many of them are coloured blue by the direct action of iodine, the reaction is 

 due to the carbo-hydrate which is mixed with the lichenin (itself not turning blue 

 with iodine) and which can be extracted from it ; its formula is also C6 Hio O5, and 

 it was named by Dragendorff lichen-starch \ Most of the gelatinous membranes, like 

 the yeast-mucilage, do not take the blue colour ; they require further examination. 



The gelatinous membranes also appear to be in many cases the seats of colouring 

 matters, for instance of the scarlet-red of the surface of the pileus of Amanita muscaria, 

 of the yellow of Boletus luteus, and of others, so that we might conclude that the 

 characteristic colours of the Fungi, with the exception of the reddish-yellow mentioned 

 above, were in almost all cases confined to the membranes. But to microscopic 

 examination in the cases named and in some others the colour appears so pale and 

 so uniformly distributed over the whole cell, that it is difficult to decide with any 

 certainty whether it belongs to the membranes or to the contents, or whether it is 

 distributed uniformly through them both. 



A review of the anatomy of the membrane leads naturally to the mention of 

 certain bodies, which are separated out from the cells and are imbedded in or more 

 usually deposited on the membranes, or are interposed in the interstices of the 

 hyphal weft; these are resinous excretions, lichen-acids, and especially calcium- 

 oxalale. The lichen-acids will be noticed again in Division III. 



R rinom excretions, the histogenetic relationships of which need not be discussed 

 in this plai e, are known in great abundance as a coating of the hyphae which compose 

 the sporophores of Polyporus officinalis, the mushroom of the Larch, and form 

 sometimes 79 per cent, of the mass of this plant. Bauke 2 found the hyphae of a 

 Diplodia furnished with a brown 'resin-like' covering. Zopf gives a similar account 

 "I ^pecies of this genus at page 48 of his work on Chaetomium which will be cited 



1 Berg, Zur Kenntn. d. Cetraria islandica (Diss. Dorpat. 1872). — Nageli u. Schwendener, Das 

 Mikroskop, Aufl. 2, 1877, P- 5 ! 8- 

 J Pycnidcn, p. 35. 



