137 



ON REPRODUCTION IN FUNGI. 

 By M. L. R. Tulasne* 



Assiduous observation, and the perfection with which micros- 

 copes are constructed, will have enabled the botanists of this age 

 to determine that there are no really againous plants, that is, 

 without sex ; at any rate they can, from the present time, suspect 

 with foundation, that in all vegetables, no matter to what group 

 they belong, there exist two distinct orders of reproductive organs, 

 the relative value of which may be compared to that of the two 

 sexes in animals. Until latterly, however, the Lichens and Fungi 

 seemed to form exceptions to this law, for all the researches of 

 phytologists could not discover in them that duality of organs 

 which, after having been for so long the exclusive privilege of 

 cotyledonous plants, has since been found to belong to nearly all 

 cryptogams. I have applied all my efforts to make this anomaly 

 disappear, and I wish I could natter myself that I had worked 

 efficaciously. 



As regards the Lichens I have shownt that the thallus of the 

 greater number of them conceals small globose organs, kinds of 

 simple or multilocular conceptacles, provided with an ostiolum, 

 which, at a certain period of their development, allow the escape 

 of an incredible number of extremely fine linear corpuscles, straight 

 or curved, such, in fact, that no resemblance usually exists between 

 them and the real spores of the lichen. Spermogonia (antheridia, 

 male flowers), entirely similar, or very analogous, are also observed 

 in different tribes of Fungi. J 



The Pyrenomyceles, to which I particularly devoted my first 

 work, furnish many very fine examples, but very varied ones are 

 also found amongst the Discomycetes to which I now wish specially 

 to draw the attention of those botanists who are interested in the 

 physiological and organographical history of Fungi. 



Among the Discomycetes of an inferior order, I have already 

 noticed the foliicolous lihytismce, the development of which begins 

 in summer by the production, on a black spot of variable extent 

 and form, of small pulviniform capsules (spermogonia), filled by a 

 solid, conical kernel, quite covered by a hymenium, like that of 

 Cytispora. Out of these capsules spreads a golden pulp, in which 

 very slender corpuscles (spermatia) are mixed with an abundant 

 mucilage ; and it is only after the expulsion of this spermatic 

 matter that the stroma of the fungus thickens around the sperma- 



* Memoir read at the Meeting of the Aca'emie des Sciences, 13 Dec, 1852, 

 translated from " Comptes Eendus," xxxv., p. 841. 



f See my first observations on the reproductive organs of Lichens, in " Comptes 

 Rendus," 24th March, 1851, and my " Memoire pour servir a l'histoire organo- 

 gruphique et phys. des Lichens," in "Ann. des Sci. Nat.," 3rd series, vol. xvii., 

 p. 5. 



% See my note on the reproductive apparatus of Fungi, in the " Comptes 

 Rendus de 1' Academic des Sciences" Meetiug, of 31 March, 1851. 



