FUNGI. 215 



entire substance, throws forth at one time, or at 

 successive times, light." From these experiments 

 Tulasne infers that the same agents, oxygen, water, 

 and warmth, are perfectly necessary to the production 

 of phosphorescence, as much in living organized 

 beings as in those which have ceased to live. In 

 either case, the luminous phenomena accompany 

 a chemical reaction which consists principally in a 

 combination of the organized matter with the oxygen 

 of the air ; that is to say, in its combustion, and in 

 the discharge of carbonic acid which thus shows 

 itself.i 



Sexuality in Agarics. 



One of the most fertile sources of romance and 

 mystification, for a century and a half, has been the 

 reproduction of the Basidiomycetal Fungi, as ex- 

 hibited in the various attempts to discover sexual 

 organs — a question still unsettled, and, as we conceive, 

 uncertain. How are the spores of agarics rendered 

 fertile, and at what stage does fertilization take 

 place .'' From analogy it may be argued that some 

 such an act should take place, but hitherto the 

 organs and the process seem to have baffled inquiry. 

 One investigator thought that he had found the 

 representatives of the male organs in the ring and 

 about the stems of the agarics, but in this he was 

 evidently mistaken. Some have sought them on the 

 hymenium, or spore-bearing surface ; others on the 



' Tulasne, " Sur la Phosphorescence des Champignons," Anita/es des 

 Sciences Naturelles {\%\%), vol. ix. p. 338 ; M, C. Cooke, " Fungi, their 

 Nature, Uses, etc.," p. 104 (1875), 



