REPllODaCTloN IN C0PR1NU3 RADIAXUS. 57 



privileged cells (w w, PI. 56) are termed cystidia (bladders), and 

 around these latter organs and their meaning the principal interest 

 of the suliject in hand will now centre. But let it be borne in 

 mind as a preliminary fact of the utmost importance that at first 

 the fungus is composed wholly of simple cells which show no 

 differentiation; no differentiatiim in the cells is seen in infancy 

 when the gills are first formed, but the privileged cells, known as 

 basidia and cystidia, come only into existence and tliat simul- 

 taneously as the plants reach maturity. This differentiation I con- 

 sider to be sexual the basidia being female, and the cystidia the 

 male organs. When the contents of the basidia and cystidia are 

 interchanged, the result is a return to another series of cells, which 

 go to form a new plant. I am perfectly aware of the opinions 

 which have been expressed by other botanists (and to which I 

 shall return), but it is not so much my aim to make my observa- 

 tions accord with what others have said, as to record what I have 

 seen myself, and to give my own interpretations of the phenomena 

 seen, irrespective of what has been said or done before. 



The first sign of differentiation in the simple cells of the gills, 

 when the basidia and cystidia are about to be produced, is in the 

 privileged cells becoming glossy, crystalline, and translucent ; 

 they both appear to secrete a material which makes them con- 

 spicuously brilliant. Each basidium then throws out four slender 

 branches, the tips of which gradually swell and form spores. The 

 cystidia (w) are more sparingly produced (for their number in this 

 species see PI. 54, h. and PI. 55, q), and at first cannot be dis- 

 tinguished from the basidia, though they are frequently larger in 

 size ; they are commonly granular within, and are in many species, 

 as in the one before us, crowned with granules, w (PI. 57, x), 

 but sometimes they bear four sjoicules, and this latter condition has 

 led some botanists to consider the cystidia to be barren basidia, but 

 that they are really cystidia with spicules is proved by the follow- 

 ing fact, which I believe to be somewhat new. In moisture, as 

 supplied by the expressed juice of horse dung (or even distilled 

 water) these spicule-beai-ing cystidia germinate at the four points 

 of the spicules, and produce long threads, which bear at their tips 

 the granxdes so frequent in typical cystidia (PL 57, y). The 

 cystidia are moreover furnished with spicules in the subgenus 

 Pleuteus. The germinating cystidia are seen in several places at 

 w, Pis. 56 and 57, and the granules at x, y. On the top of PL 

 57 is seen a section of a gill with all the bodies in position 

 enlarged 350 diameters, whilst on the lower part of the cut may be 

 seen various germinating cystidia to the same scale as seen on the 

 surface of a gill. . The granules at y, which are at first not capable 

 of movement, are really spermatozoids possessed of a fecundative 

 power, but to see this power brought into operation considerable care 

 and patience and the higher powers of the microscope are requisite. 

 In certain other of the Agaricini, the protoplasmic contents of the 



