1 76 DIVISION II. — COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 



the sporogenous hypha, in place of which a group of 2-4 delicate cells subsequently 

 makes its appearance after some intermediate stages which have not been clearly 

 ascertained; these cells are firmly united together and develope into spores, and 

 the group in its early stages has slender curved hyphal branches growing close 

 round it and forming an envelope for it. The hyphae of the envelope are divided 

 by transverse walls into short cells, most of which disappear as the spores ripen, 

 while a small number of cells varying with the individual deVclope into persistent half 

 lenticular envelope-cells, which lie close upon the group of spores as it matures. 

 The envelope appears to be formed at earlier or later periods in the development 

 according to the species, and the division of the spore-primordia to be sometimes 

 omitted, as only one ripe spore is not unfrcquently found inside a group of envelope- 

 cells. According to Prillieux the process is much more simple; a number of 

 sporogenous hyphal branches become felted into a knot, and one or more branches 

 form a spore acrogenouslv, as in Tilletia, while the cells of the other branches 

 develope more or less perfectly into an envelope ; but the envelope may be omitted 

 and then the spore is formed as in Tilletia. My older observations agreed pretty 

 well with these statements of Prillieux, but it would be desirable to have other 

 confirmation of them. 



The commencement of a spore-cluster in Sorosporium and Tuburcinia, ac- 

 cording to Woronin, is also a short turgid lateral branch, sometimes perhaps two 

 branches, lying close upon one another. Every such primordium is then wrapped 

 up in a tangle of the many ramifications of slender hyphal branchlets, which become 

 woven together into a round compact coil. No further differentiation is at first 

 perceptible in the coil. When it has grown to a certain size its central portion 

 consists of a compact group of delicate polyhedric cells, which then ripen all 

 together into perfect spores without further perceptible division by multiplication. 

 The group is at first still enclosed in a dense many-layered web of hyphae, but this 

 disappears as the spores mature, in Sorosporium with a previous conversion into 

 mucilage. The first formation of the group of spores in the coil is not clearly 

 ascertained. Frank's statement, that each spore comes from a turgid cell of one 

 of the original filaments of the coil, and that the other parts then form the temporary 

 envelope, is plausible but requires more distinct proof. We learn from Fischer 

 von Waldheim that spores sometimes occur even in Sorosporium Saponariae, which 

 are abjointed singly and without envelope on the extremity of a hypha as in Tilletia. 

 If these spores really belong to Sorosporium, as they must be supposed to do without 

 proof to the contrary, and not to a parasite of the plant, Frank's view finds in them 

 material support. 



The development of the spores has not been closely followed in the genera 

 Thecaphora and Schizonclla. Schrbt., which certainly come near to Sorosporium. 



Section LVI. The single ripe spore of the Ustilagincae is usually round or 

 polyhedric and has the ordinary structure of firm Fungus-spores, — a delicate colourless 

 endosporium enclosing the protoplasm, and a stout episporium, which in most species, 

 and also in a form of Entyloma distinguished as Melanotaenium, is dark-coloured, 

 and in many has a delicacy of structure and superficial marking which is character- 

 istic and useful for the discrimination of species; in some cases it has a distinct 

 germ-pore. It is only in the majority of the Fntylomeae that the thick stratified 



