38 A MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS PODAXIS DESV. (= PODAXON FR.). 



careful search, with, I believe, total absence of bias, I have not in 

 a single instance caught a glimpse of anything that indicated the 

 point of attachment of a spore at the apex of what Fischer considers 

 to be the basidia; the apices are absolutely smooth and homogeneous, 

 whereas in Geaster and several genera belonging to the Hymeno- 

 gastrecs, where the spores are sessile on the basidia, the latter 

 always show clearly a scar corresponding to the point of attachment 

 of the spores. What I do find in the shrivelled bodies, after having 

 become fully expanded, is an irregular slit in the wall, sometimes 

 apical, sometimes slightly removed from the apex, and through this 

 slit I assume (but in the species under consideration have no 

 evidence) that the spore has escaped from the ascus. A final 

 objection to the basidial nature of the clavate bodies in P. carti- 

 nomalis, in common with all the species, is the total absence of 

 young spores ; during the examination of material from immature 

 specimens, I have repeatedly noticed clusters of the spore producing 

 bodies in various stages of development, some very small, but in 

 every instance perfectly smooth at the apex ; whereas in the 

 Gastromycetes, as a rule, the spores first appear at the apices of the 

 basidia as conspicuous papillae. 



The ascosporous hyphae, with their clusters of asci, persist in a 

 shrivelled condition in all the species of Poda.vis, and the spores 

 may usually be seen adhering in clusters to the shrivelled asci, 

 being held by some mucilaginous substance furnished by the partial 

 disintegration of the hyphae, and it sometimes happens that one or 

 more spores are agglutinated to the apex of an ascus in such a 

 position as to suggest the idea of a basidium with spores attached 

 to its apex ; but this idea is dispelled by further examination, 

 which reveals spores agglutinated, but not organically attached to 

 the asci in all positions, and, by their dropping away when hydrate 

 of potash or hydrate of ammonia is run in under the cover-glass, 

 the last-mentioned medium is very useful in soon causing expansion 

 of the shrivelled asci in old specimens. 



A very remarkable modification of the already-described asco- 

 genous mode of spore-formation is met with in Podaxis Emeriti 

 Berk., where the by menial hyphae produce at their tips, and also 

 laterally, short, simple branches, with very few transverse septa ; 

 this septate portion eventually gives origin to numerous obovate 

 cells, homologous with the asci in P. indica ; these cells, after 

 receiving all the protoplasm from the parent-cells, are respectively 

 cut off from communication with the latter by the formation of 

 transverse septa at the narrow basal portion, are at first colourless, 

 and filled with granular vacuolated protoplasm, and become 

 differentiated into spores furnished with one (rarely two) germ- 

 pores in the thick wall, and, while yet colourless, fall away as free 

 spores showing very distinctly at the narrow end, the "hilum," or 

 projecting scar, corresponding to the point of attachment to the 

 parent-cell ; the spores continue to increase in size after becoming 

 free, and when mature are coloured olive-brown (fig. 25). 



Comparing these spores with those of P. indica, we notice that 

 the development is absolutely homologous up to the point of 



