THE CONIDIA OF FISTULINA. 



177 



have observed among the Fistulinas, I do not believe that this is 

 always the case. Secondly, in old examples, I have encountered 

 some gaps, in which all the conidiophore cells have been employed 

 in the fabrication of the conidia, and one only finds it upon the 

 borders of the conidia attached to their mother cells. 



Such a phenomenon might lead one to believe in the destruc- 

 tion of the tissue of the fungus by a foreign parasite; but, 

 when one has gathered individuals in which the conidial de- 

 velopment has had less intensity, or is less advanced, on the con- 

 trary it is seen upon a cut, either by the naked eye, or with a lens, 

 the perfect homogenity of the tissue of the receptacle, to comprise 

 the conidial zone, of which one only sees another transition of 

 slight degradations of tints. This exterior homogenity is hardly 

 the case, it may be granted, of the tissues invaded by a foreign 

 parasite. 



In the great number of examples that I have hitherto examined 

 I have not encountered one that did not present the conidia here 

 described. Not only for more than ten years have I examined it 

 every year in different parts of France, but I have examined it in 

 the herbaria, notably in the Collection Desmazieres (2nd ser.), 

 mounted in 1855 ; another of Maille dated 1825. I havesearched 

 in different countries ; and although the FistuUna hepatica is neither 

 rare in England nor in America, I have never been able to procure 

 it in these coiintries. I have been in Germany. I have examined 

 an example in the Montague Herbarium, coming from Sikkim, in 

 the Himalayas ; this example is abundantly provided with co- 

 nidia of similar form, having the same similarity of position as 

 those which the Fistuliuas of France have offered me. 



The germination of the conidia is difficult to obtain, and it is 

 only after some fruitless attempts that I have been able to see them 

 germinate ; this result has been arrived at by conidia which were 

 more than four years old. I have uselessly attempted some sub- 

 stratum more allied to the natural state, like the infusions of chest- 

 nut wood and different other liquid combinations. It is 

 simply water very slightly sweetened that suffices for it. Some 

 conidia, placed in this vehicle between two glasses on the 26tli 

 April, 1870, showed me the successive phases of their germina- 

 tion in the latter days of May and the first days of June of the 

 same year ; some days after, some foreign mycelia were insinuated 

 by the borders of my small apparatus, and, having penetrated to 

 the interior, caused me to stop my observations. This is what I 

 observed in the interval ; after an absolute repose of about a 

 month longer for a certain number of conidia which had not yet ger- 

 minated on the 3rd June, the internal membrane swelled out, burst 

 the external .envelope, freeing itself from its debris by the con- 

 siderable increase of its size ; it then becomes regularly spherical 

 and presents a diameter of -006 mm. to -009 mm. The oily 

 clots, one or two, which existed in the conidee before the opening 

 of the external membrane, are always risible, and do not appear to 



