512 State Board ok Aoricdlture. &c. 



with power to reproduce the phxnt, as by cuttnigs, through 

 all the generations possible in a single season. Not being 

 true seeds, capable of preservation, but immediately 

 exhausting themselves in germination, the species must 

 become extinct upon the approach of winter, unless the 

 plant produces spores of a more enduring character than 

 these. In tliis regard, do these simply-organized plants 

 bear a close analogy to some of the animals of tlie lower 

 order, as the aphides, or plant lice ? The females of these 

 insects, without any intercourse with males — for there are 

 then no males — bring forth living young (similarly fertile 

 females,) throughout the most of the season. Only near 

 the close of summer is there produced a generation of 

 males and females, mingled ; and these, uniting, produce 

 the eggs designed to bridge over the winter season for the 

 species, and carry it safely into a succeeding summer. 



The third mode of reproduction of the potato fungus, 

 only recently observed, and by Mr. Smith, seems designed 

 for the same end — of preserving the species through the win- 

 ter. It gives rise to still other bodies, called oospores (egg- 

 spores), or, more commonly, resting-spores. These resting- 

 spores are produced by the contact of two sexual, spore- 

 like bodies, the one known as the antheridium, which is 

 the male, ' and is analagous to tlie anther in flowering 

 plants, and the other called the oogonium, being the female 

 and analogous with the ovary of the flower. The oogon- 

 ium, or female of these two bodies, is like a pod, and con- 

 tains the oosphere, oi* egg-sphere, which, being fertilized by 

 the anthii'idium (the male), becomes the oospore, (egg-seed,) 

 the true resting-spore. Both these bodies are contained 



