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or bulbets, when it is called Sclerotia. A similar state of things is common in 
many perennial flowering plants, as Convolvulus sepium and Sagittaria sagittifolia, 
and they both at first arise from a seed in the same way as a Mushroom arises from 
aspore. In Mushroom-spawn the grower gets a material similar in nature to the 
root-stock in Couch-grass. 
Plate VIII., and last represents, enlarged 120 diameters, C. radiatus a few 
moments before expansion, when nearly all the cells are present. Most of the 
cells here shown are, however, only about one-half the size they reach at maturity, 
and they are not all and every one produced till the exact moment of complete 
expansion, as I have ascertained by counting the cells of many specimens. This 
is not to be wondered at, for if the 22,500,000 cells which go to make up one of 
these minute plants require fourteen days for their production, it follows asa 
necessity that the cells go on multiplying all the fortnight, night and day, at the 
rate of 1,114 tothe minute. It takes about five hours for the spores to be gradually 
produced all over the hymenium—say from 5 to 10 o’clock in the morning, and as 
there are upwards of 3,000,000 spores to each plant, they as a consequence gradually 
appear upon the basidia or spore-bearing spicules at the rate of 100,000 every 
minute. 
No sooner has the plant arrived at perfection than that very moment it 
begins to perish. I have demonstrated that the cells of the pileus and the hairs 
which form the veil are the first to appear, and so they are the first to disappear. 
The fine matted hairs which form the veil in plate VIII., B B B, are all torn asunder 
during the few moments consumed in the expansion of the cap, and at the 
moment of maturity the hairs vanish and the pileusis naked, nakedness is the first 
sign of its decay. When the fragile little fungus has at length produced its fruit, 
and is prostrate and dying upon the matrix from which it sprang, then, as can be 
seen with patience under the microscope, the cystidia produce spermatozoids which 
are at first passive and then active ; these pierce the spores and cause the discharge 
of the first living cell of the pileus of a new plant. It will be seen from these 
observations that C. radiatus, though one of the most minute and fugitive of all 
the Mushroom tribe, is yet as completely perfect in all its parts as any of the 
larger and higher species of Agaricus. It must not be supposed that these observa- 
tions can be followed without close attention and the utmost patience. All the 
3,000,000 spores of the fungus do not grow and make new plants, or the world 
would soon be covered with C. radiatus. For every spore that is fertilised and 
grows there are millions which necessarily perish. 
Onadung-heap which will produce C. radiatus, other species, as C, nycthemerus, 
&c., are sure to appear; and not only do allied species come up in company with C. 
radiatus, but every intermediate form between one and the other may be gathered 
any morning. These latter plants belong to no species described as such, but are 
natural hybrids, doubtlessly produced by the spermatozoids of one plant piercing 
the spores of another. Amongst the larger species of Agaricus similar forms are 
quite common, and they prove sore puzzles for those men who only want names for 
the fungi they find. Iam convinced that at least three-fourths of the described 
