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ON CYSTIDIA. 

 By M. Anton de Bary.* 



In the ITymcnomyretes the organs of the male sex have been the 

 object of many researches. J. Hedwigf thought that he had 

 found their seat in the ring, the stria? and scales of the stipe of 

 pileate Fungi, and he took to be sexual organs the corpuscles 

 accumulated on these several parts, but which, according to his 

 own descriptions, could only have been the spores fallen from the 

 hymenium. 



Long before this Micheli had seen on the hymenium of a Coprinus 

 particular vesicular organs, and he had perhaps also (for the fact 

 does not seem to me without doubt) noticed the same vesicles in 

 other Agaricini, as lt apetalous flowers, naked and consisting only 

 of a single filament." Bulliard, in his " Champignons de la 

 France" (vol. i., p. 39 — 50), also considers these organs to be a 

 sexual apparatus and a sort of spermatic vesicles. They have 

 since been differently described by several authors. They are 

 qualified as " cystidia" by M. Leveiile, as " paraphyses" by M. 

 Phcebus, but to Klotzscli and Corda J they are positively antheridia, 

 anthers, or pollenidia. M. Hoffmann § has more recently devoted 

 a special memoir to them. They are found in the greater number 

 of the fleshy Hymenomycetes, but, according to M. Phcebus, their 

 presence is not constant in several species, such as Agaricus 

 lateritius and Ag. geophilus and Cantharellus aurantiacus. It 

 seems they have not yet been met with in the Hydnei and the 

 Clavarice. The hymenium of the Hymenogastri presents a few, and, 

 doubtless, the paraphyses which I have noticed in Geaster 

 hygrometricus are analogous to them. The cystidia are large cells 

 which are especially recognized by their projecting, more or less, 

 on the surface of the hymenium. They have besides the same 

 direction and the same seat as the basidia. Their form and 

 dimensions vary much according to the species under observation. 

 They are generally constant and characteristic for each species, 

 but they are less so for the genera or subgenera. Among the most 

 remarkable of them we must especially mention the large cystidia 

 which are thought to be common to all the Coprini, and which are 

 oval or elongated cells, obtuse, and sufficiently large to be visible to 

 the naked eye. In other cases the cystidia are cylindrical, clavate, 

 lageniform, obtuse (in Polypoms wnbeUatus according to Corda, 

 and Agaricus viscidus, L., according to Phcebus), pointed or capitate 

 (in Lactarins, Russida, and Boletus according to Corda). The 

 cystidia are simple, sometimes branched and cylindrical, capilliforru, 



* Translated from the 5th Chapter of DeBary's " Morphologic und Physiologie 

 der Pilze." 

 f Theoria general, et fructif , Plant, Crypt, 

 t Icones Fungorum, vol. iii., p. 44. 

 § Botanische Zeitnng (1856), p. 137. 



