8G NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



Here we have, in reality, a Polyporns of which the receptacle is angio- 

 carporis, like that of tli Gasteromycetes in the superior and conidian 

 part, and which is gymnocarpous in the inferior and hymenial part. 

 This receptacle becomes dry and brittle ; the whole of the couidia 

 in it have at maturity the appearance of a pulverulent gleba much more 

 marked than in Fistulina. These elongated cellules scattered across 

 this sort of gleba, produce the illusion of a capillitiura. 



The formation of the conidia is successive ; it takes place at the 

 extremity of the cellular ramifications ; when a conidium has arrived 

 at maturity and is detached, a second is formed below, and detached 

 in its turn. This is the process of development which authors have 

 called " acrosporous " ; but here, as in the greater number of similar 

 cases, there is only an illusory appearance. Even on a dry specimen 

 it is easy to recognize the real genesis of the couidia by unequivocal 

 signs, and by the aid of appropriate reagents. In the greater number 

 the envelope is homogeneous and single ; we find some, however, 

 especially among the largest ones, which have empty spaces in the 

 thickness of the wall itself; these spaces describe a curve, concentric 

 with the double outline of the wall, and are situated at the two ex- 

 tremities of the longer diameter. They are sometimes united by a dark 

 line which traces thus the separation of two distinct envelopes. We 

 can see that the outlines of the external enveloi^e are continuous with 

 those of the parent cell. When the conidium is still adhering to it, 

 tlie relatively great thickness of the different walls renders this 

 observation easy and its interpretation very clear. A transversal 

 septum is most often formed below the point at which the conidium 

 developes itself, so as to form a chamber — a sporangium, it may be 

 called — in which the conidium is organized. The wall of the latter 

 adheres early to that of the parent cell, of which sometimes it does 

 not reach the summit ; at other times the adherence is interrupted, 

 and even the si)ace comprised between the inferior part of the 

 conidium and the septum of the parent cell is filled with cellulose. 

 The parent cell, impoverished and attenuated below the sejitum, 

 breaks at this point, and the conidium carries with it the little 

 cellulose appendage which served it as support. Sulphuric acid and 

 the prolonged action of glycerine disassociate the conidium from the 

 parent cell and make it appear free from all adherence in the cellular 

 chamber in which it has had its orig'n ; the preliminary phases of the 

 germination produce the same result. 



We have seen above that during the development of the conidium 

 the wall of the parent cell becomes thinned for the benefit of the 

 conidium ; the same jDhenomenon is produced in the successive de- 

 velopment of the cells of the recejitacle ; these facts led the author to 

 examine the influence which is exercised on the properties of the 

 fungoid cellulose by the displacements which it undergoes in the 

 species which take u]} from the thick walls of their cells the materials 

 for their nutrition and growth. The instability, the diminution of 

 cohesion, doubtless imposed on the fungine by these displacements, 

 seem to account for its jjroperty of turning blue on the contact of 

 an iodine reagent, without becoming soluble in Schweitzer's liquid. 



