VINE AND HOP. 65 



occasionally they did not exceed 50. lu both cases alike these 

 bodies germinated very readily when kept moist between two slips 

 of glass (Fig. 5), in one instance even producing an approach to 

 fertile threads and swellings of the articulations, the forerunners, 

 as Dr. Plomley believed, of true (Fig. 6) sporangia or pycnidia, it 

 is uncertain which, as either may arise from the decumbent threads. 

 But not only did they germinate when separated from the utricles 

 either by pressure or spontaneous rupture, but even where no 

 rupture in the walls of the mother-cell took place they germinated 

 ill situ, pushing out the shoots of mycelium through the walls 

 In many instances, little germs were produced from the cells, 

 which call to remembrance the observations which Tulasne has 

 made on the germinating threads of Puccinia (Fig. 7), though it 

 perhaps may not be certain that they are of precisely the same 

 relative importance. In many cases the fallen utricles adhered 

 together in considerable masses, germinating and producing an 

 inextricable plexus of spores, myceloid threads, &c., and so giving 

 rise to the curdy appearance which is often observable in hop 

 mildew, and indeed in most allied forms of mildew. These facts 

 are very curious, for the utricles themselves have often been 

 observed in a state of germination, as figured by Amici, and by 

 Dr. Plomley himself in the grape mildew, but in these lower 

 productions, wherever a complete cell is produced perfectly indi- 

 vidualised, there seems a power of reproduction, and we know not 

 how far the notion of Turpin may be verified, that it may some 

 day be possible to raise a Pha^nogam from a single cell. Whether 

 this may be true or not practically, some cases of grafting, as the 

 well-known one of the so-called Scarlet Laburnum, tend to show 

 that it is so theoretically. It will not be superfluous to notice 

 further, that in the hop mildew Mr. Broome has found on the 

 same mycelium as the Erysiphe, but on the upper surface of the 

 leaves only, a little brown Sphseria (Fig. 8), intermediate in size 

 between the sporangia and pycnidia. The perithecia contained 

 perfect uniseptate sporidia '0005 inch in length, whereas the sporidia 

 of the accompanying Erysiphe were about '0013. It is singular 

 that a parasite so closely resembling the Erysiphe in form and 

 colour, not to mention other points, should exist in such a situation. 

 Are we then, after the facts detailed above and elsewhere, to 

 conclude that these Oidia are really states of so many species of 

 Erysiphe? This question seems to me to admit only of one 

 answer, and that affirmative; for though it may be very true that 

 one cannot see the sporangia utricles and pycnidia upon one and 



VOL. TX. F 



