176 THE OONIDIA OF FISTULINA. 



periods of formation, one may presume upon the endogenous for- 

 mation of the conidium, although the immediate soldering of its 

 envelope with the membrane of the mother cell, checks the belief 

 in a direct manner. This genesis is almost as clear as that of the 

 chlamydospores of JJucoi' ; only it is terminated, in place of 

 operating upon the passage of a filament ; it is sometimes so in 

 the chlamydospores, and if one only had observed this last variety, 

 I cannot say if one should have admitted without contest their 

 endogenous formation. Nevertheless, I still leave here a point of 

 interrogation, and I cannot give to the conidia of Fistulinas the 

 name of chlamydospores ; I have shown elsewhere that the spores 

 called acrogenous have in reality an endosporic development, they 

 also ought to be called chlamydospores. One has sometimes called 

 them conidia, notably among the Aspergillus, when one has dis- 

 covered among them another mode of reproduction of the theca- 

 sporic form. One sees the^confusion created by this application of 

 different names to the same bodies ; thus we prefer to see the 

 ancient denominations prevail, and the chlamydospores of the 

 Mucoi^, for example, called intra-mycelian conidia, until the time 

 when one can make a rigorous classification of these different 

 terms. 



Perhaps, if we desired more exactly to characterise the conidia 

 of the Fistulinas, their totally new angiocarpous development, the 

 analogy of the mother cell and the basidia, of the conidia and the 

 spore would lead to calling them pseudospores ; but it appears to 

 us that a denomination besides, which can flatter the amdhr-propre 

 of the inventor, far from conveying precision and clearness, only 

 causes a greater confusion in a subject already sufficiently embroiled, 

 in completely losing sight of the general likeness of similar organs 

 in different plants. This is my motive in preserving to the Fis- 

 tulinas the name of conidia ; which does not at all interfere in the 

 exposition of the development, with the entirely special cha- 

 racters which they may present. 



"When the conidium is formed, it detaches itself from the coni- 

 diophore cell, which is very attenuated at the point which supports 

 it, and it forms on the under side another conidium in the same 

 manner, destined to detach itself in its turn ; sometimes also the 

 second is formed before the first is detached, and it is often 

 then deformed ; this second conidium having both its extremities 

 truncated, has moreover the form of a tipcat, or is slightly 

 elbowed, if it is developed at a point near the bifurcation of the 

 conidiophore cell. In any case, this basipetal development con- 

 tinues, may amend, one understands, little by little, the destruction 

 of the conidiophore cell, which does not elongate in a measure as 

 it gives bii'th to some new reproductive bodies, as is the case in 

 Penicillium. Thus two consequences. On one part, the case in 

 which we see only one conidium, carried upon a short pedicel, emerge 

 from the cell of the parenchyma might really be the result of the 

 successive reduction of the conidiophore cell ; nevertheless, as I 



