452 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



" The mother-plant had a height of 3-4| inches and was com- 

 pletely white ; its stalk was bent ; and its lamellae, as also the edge 

 of the pileus, were white. The fungi obtained through sowing 

 spores, on the other hand, were small, |-1| inches high ; their 

 stalks were perfectly upright and grey ; their lamellae were grey- 

 blue ; and the cap had no margin. They looked exactly like the 

 fungi illustrated by Ditmar (Sturm : Deutschl. Flora, III Abth., 

 1 Bandch.)." 



Krombholz's experiment is highly instructive, for it affords 

 strong evidence that Nyctalis asterophora : (1) can attack a living 

 fruit-body of Russula nigricans and is therefore a true parasite, 

 (2) can enter the host fruit-body very readily via the pellicle covering 

 the pileus-flesh, (3) can reproduce itself by means of its chlamydo- 

 spores, and (4) can complete its development from chlamydospore 

 to chlamydospore within about three weeks. 



Until the time of Brefeld, but little notice was taken of Kromb- 

 holz's experiment upon the propagation of Nyctalis asterophora and, 

 in the meanwhile, there grew up an erroneous conception of the 

 nature of the chlamydospores. Corda ^ and Bonorden ^ regarded 

 the connection of the chlamydospores with the Nyctalis as unproved 

 and favoured the view that the chlamydospores belong to a fungus 

 that is parasitic on the Nyctalis. Tulasne ^ then expressed this 

 view more distinctly and stated that the chlamydospores of Nyctalis 

 asterophora and N. parasitica belong not to these two species of 

 Nyctalis, but to two parasitic fungi which he included in the 

 sphaeriaceous genus Hypomyces. The supposed parasite on Nyctalis 

 asterophora he called Hypomyces asterophorus, and the supposed 

 parasite on N. parasitica H. Baryanus. According to Tulasne, 

 these two species of Hypomyces live parasitically on a single species 

 of Nyctalis * in such a manner that, when the Nyctalis is attacked 

 by H. asterophorus, it becomes transformed into N . asterophora 



^ A. C. I. Corda, Icones Fungorum huctisque cognitorum, Prag, T. IV, 1840, p. 8. 



- H. F. Bonorden, Handbuch tier allgemeinen Mijcohgie, Stuttgart, IS.'Sl, p. 82. 



•^ L. R. Tulasne, " De quelques Spheries fongicoles a propos dun memoire de 

 M. Antoine de Bary sur les Nyctalis," Ann sci. nat., 4 ser., T. XIII, 1860, pp. 5-15. 

 Also Seleda Fungorum Carpologia, T. Ill, 1865, pp. 54-59. 



■* Tulasne refers to this agaric as Agaricus parasiticus Bull., " De quelques 

 Spheries, etc.," pp. 13-14, etc. 



