138 



ON REPRODUCTION IN FUNGI. 



gonia to serve as a base for the lirellas, that is to say, for the gene- 

 rative apparatus of the spores. These new organs take all the 

 autumn and winter to gain their full size, and do not ripen their 

 seeds until the early spring. The spermatia of Rhytisma acerinum 

 are linear and short, those of Rhytisma salicinum are globular. 

 We know that M. LeVeille considered as a fungus mis' generis the 

 apparatus which engenders these corpuscles, and that he gave it 

 the name of Melasmia. 



Several Hysteria certainly possess spermogonia, but they are 

 generally rather easy to confound with productions foreign to the 

 fungus ; we ought, however, to recognise as those of Hysterium 

 Fraxini the small lageniform, and very black bodies, which are so 

 abundantly sprinkled over the area occupied by the lirellse, and 

 which no longer contain any spermatia long before the maturity of 

 the spores. The spermogonia of Hysterium commune, like those of 

 Hysterium scirpinum and Hysterium rubi, are small, depressed cap- 

 sules, of a brilliant black, in which we find an innumerable quantity 

 of atomic spermatia ; they have hitherto been taken for species of 

 Leptostroma. 



The spermogonia of Triblidium quercinum imitate in their form 

 and structure those of Rhytisma ; they are produced fastened to the 

 first rudiments of the lirellse, and their debris remain near these 

 during the whole period of their long vegetation. The spermatia 

 are linear, straight, and about "065 m.m. long ; the spores are also 

 very slender, but of a much more considerable length. 



In Stictis ocellata, a Pezizoid fungus which gives out a very de- 

 cided odour of honey, a great number of the tubercles which ought 

 to be transformed into cups do not pass into this perfect state until 

 after having produced either linear and very short spermatia or 

 stylospores ; the latter are acrogenous, oblong, reproducing bodies, 

 w r hich are equal in volume to the spores of the endothecium. Some 

 tubercles confine their fecundity to this gangliary generation, and 

 remain pycnidia, pure, and simple, that is to say, organs analogous, 

 as regards their office, to the conceptacles I have thus designated in 

 the Lichens.* 



I also consider as pycnidia the small unilocular capsules with 

 thick walls, which are seen mixed with the cups of Heterosphairia 

 patella, and which are generated on very short basidia, lanceolate, 

 arcuate stylospores. There also exist such relations between Ceu- 

 thosporaphacidioides and Phacidium Ilicis that the first ought to be 

 considered the pycnidia or spermogonia of the second. 



The spermogonia of Tympanis conspersah&Ye a turbinate-oblong 

 form, the hard consistence and black colour usual to the perithecia 

 of the Sphcerice, but their inner wall is tapestried with the same 

 hymenium as the central kernel of the spermogonia of Rhytisma, 

 that is to say, with slender branched filaments from which spring 



* " Annales des Sci. Nat.," 3rd series, vol. xvii., p. 108. 



