182 ON CYSTIDIA. 



as in Agaricus fumosus P., Agaricus laccatus, Scop, and others. 

 In Agaricus jiluteus, P., they represent a kind of flask terminated 

 superiorly by several short, pointed recurved appendages, which 

 appear to me to be doubly hooked. Still more singular forms have 

 been observed by the authors I have quoted. 



The structure of the cystidia offers few peculiarities ; in the 

 greater part a delicate and colourless membrane surrounds some- 

 times a similarly colourless plasma, full of vacuoles, and sometimes 

 a perfectly transparent liquid. I have observed in the hymen ium 

 of Coprinus micaceus which had not yet attained its maturity, that 

 the cystidia enclosed a central plastic body, irregularly elongated, 

 which sent in all directions towards the sides of the cell a multitude 

 of filiform processes, branching and anastomosing amongst them- 

 selves. These processes changed their form with astonishing 

 rapidity,* after the manner of the Amoebae. The older cystidia 

 were entirely transparent. 



The contents of the cystidia of Lactarius deliciosus, and allied 

 species, are granular and opaque. In this respect the cystidia 

 resemble the laticiferous tubes or filaments, and often when a thick 

 slice of the substance of the fungus is observed it seems that they 

 are branches from these filaments, the more so since they bury them- 

 selves deeply in the weft of the lamelke, underneath the sub- 

 hy menial tissue. Still I have never seen them spring except from 

 filaments of the weft deprived of latex, of which they seemed to be 

 branches. The cystidia of Agaricus balaninus, Berk., are of a dark 

 purple colour.^ 



According to Corda, and the uncertain opinions of anterior 

 authors, the cystidia eject their contents under the form of a liquid 

 drop and that by their summit, which is represented as open. I 

 have not, any more than M. Hoffmann, been able to convince 

 myself that this phenomenon is produced spontaneously. I have, 

 indeed, only very rarely seen the cystidia burst in the water, which 

 the same author says takes place very irregularly. If their surface 

 is damp, and often bears liquid drops, this is a circumstance which 

 is common to them with all fungoid cells that are full of juice. 



The cystidia are developed in nearly the same time as the basidia. 

 Sometimes they are dispersed without order amongst the latter ; 

 sometimes, and more generally, they are placed on the free edges 

 of the prominences of the hymenium, and especially on the cutting 

 of the lamellae of the Agaricini. Their number is always less than 

 that of the basidia, and often it is insignificant. 



Those observers who have considered the cystidia to be male 

 sexual organs have supposed that the ripe and detached spores of 

 the basidia fastened themselves to the moist surface of these 

 cystidia, to be there fecundated by the lubricating liquid. J If this 



* See Ditmar in Sturm Deutschl, Flora, part iii., No. 1, pi. 28. 



f See Montagne Organ, et Phys. de la Classe des Champignons. 



X See Klotzsch in Dietrich Flor. Boruss., vol. vi., sub. Coprinus deliquescens. 



