ON THE STUDY OF MICRO-FUNGI. 375 



dermis with its sharply-pointed end, and thus conveys into the 

 tissues of the plant the protoplasm from the promycelial spore, 

 which very shortly gives rise to the mycehum that produces the 

 spermogonia and secidiospores. 



Thus have we arrived at the point where we started, having 

 followed the fungus through its various stages and described the 

 cycle of its life-history. The aecidiospores germinated and pro- 

 duced the uredospores, the uredospores germinated and produced 

 the teleutospores, and the teleutospores, after resting for several 

 months, germinated and produced the aecidiospores. From this it 

 may easily be understood that, until their life-history had been 

 made out, these several different spore-forms might very well have 

 been treated as so many different species of fungi ; but now it is 

 clearly established that they are but so many stages in the life of 

 one fungus, Puccinia lapsance. 



Perhaps the following sketch of how a new species was found 

 and its life-history worked out may not be without interest to those 

 who are strangers to this branch of work. In searching any dis- 

 trict for these fungi it generally happens that some particular 

 locality at length becomes singled out as one which provides more 

 chances of success than others. One place which the writer 

 found particularly rich in specimens was a small, open, boggy spot, 

 perhaps only about twenty yards in circumference, in the midst of 

 a small wood. Very few persons ever found their way thither, so 

 that the vegetation was permitted to grow undisturbed and in a 

 wild luxuriance calculated to delight the heart of anyone who 

 loved to see things in a true state of nature. Part of an old tree- 

 trunk lay rotting amid the herbage, and near at hand trickled a 

 tiny stream. Around the margin grew various trees and shrubs, 

 and everywhere there was an abundance of flowers. In course of 

 time this delightful little spot became, in imagination, my own 

 peculiar property and a place across which no vulgar feet had any 

 right to tread. Under such circumstances it was only natural that 

 great disappointment, if not wrath, should be expressed when, on 

 proceeding one day to the old haunt, it was found that the wood- 

 man had been hard at work and levelled to the ground the little 

 wood and obliterated the happy hunting ground. Sic transit 

 gloria 7nundu 



