SEXUALITY IN THE LOWEE CRYPTO OAMIA. 67 



" margin, as basidia which have become hypertrophied and resumed 

 " the character of vegetative organs, as one sees abnormally a carpel 

 " become a leaf. "We are thus brought back to Micheli's first con- 

 " ception, who called them barren flowers, using the terms, however, 

 " in a sense diametrically opposite to his. The cystidia seem to me to 

 ** fulfil, with regard to the gills, the same function as the ring does 

 " with the pileus and stipes ; these two organs send out prolonga- 

 "tions which bind them together: the gills, organs of the same 

 ." nature and contiguous, have a tendency to send out prolongations 

 '* to bind one another together. A certain number of basidia obey- 

 " ing this law elongate and are diverted from their primitive function, 

 *' but in like manner as the ring may be very much developed, or so 

 "fugacious and rudimentary that its existence may be only just 

 " ascertainable, and may seem to be altogether wanting ; in like man- 

 " ner the cystidia may be wanting, or may be so well-developed as to 

 " be visible to the naked eye. In some cases they fulfil this function 

 "of 'ties' so well that in separating the laraellse of a partially 

 " expanded specimen of Ag. atramentarius, Bull., the gills separate 

 *' into two longitudinal portions instead of the corresponding faces of 

 *' two different gills parting from one another. This phenomenon is 

 *' so apparent that Delile, who was ignorant of the cystidia, had 

 " noted the existence of fibrous prolongations binding together the 

 " gills of this Agaric." 



In the " Botanische Zeitung" (Vol. xiv. p. 153), Hoffman noticed 

 the occurrence of small corpuscles scattered about the mycelium of 

 certain Agarics. They were said not to germinate, and to be like 

 the spermatia of the Discomycetes and Lichens. They do not, how- 

 ever, appear to be male organs. Tulasne says of them :* " Eecunda 

 si qua vis eis impertitur, saltern in sporis priusquam germinent 

 sicuti docuerunt experimenta ad hoc instituta non exercetur ; utrum 

 vero mycelio recenti quodammodo prosint, hactenus prorsus igno- 

 ratur." 



In the " Botanische Zeitung" for April 5th, 1861, (Vol. xix. 

 p. 89), Dr. De Bary states that he has observed in £eronospora 

 calotheca and P. alsinearum small curved clavate cells, springing from 

 the mycelium, which press with their upper end against the 

 wall of the large vescicular spore-cells observed by Tulasne and 

 Caspary. He considers these latter cells to be one-spored oogonia, 



* Sel. Fung. Carp. Vol. i. p. 168. 



F 2 



