q 
7 
A 
« 
: 
t 
F 
179 
On the Seeds ov Spores of Kungi.* 
HE varied forms and beautiful construction of the seeds of 
our flowering plants have long occupied the attention of 
observers of nature, but the seeds, or spores, of fungi, from 
their diminutive size, and the impossibility of investigating 
them without the aid of a microscope, have been comparatively 
unnoticed. In this paper I shall endeavour to direct attention 
to the endless variety and beauty which exists in these minute 
organisms, as in every object, small or great, in the vast kingdom 
of Nature. 
Some fungi-spores are smooth, dry, and polished, others are 
viscid and sticky; some are very persistent, whilst a fourth 
are very evanescent, and speedily collapse and perish. Some 
possess highly poisonous properties, for Dr. Badham is said 
once to have suffered violently from simply tasting those of 
one of the Milk-mushrooms! Indeed, many species are acrid 
and pungent to an extreme degree: some varieties at once 
attack and inflame the mouth; whilst others are more quiet, 
with a taste at first, sweet, mild, or inoffensive, but which 
after a time, causes violent pain, and in at least two species, 
constriction of the throat. It has more than once been suggested 
that the mysterious poison of the gipsies, the so called ‘ drei,’? 
which is said to be a soft impalpable powder, is nothing more 
nor less than fungi-spores, gathered from some poisonous species. 
Such minute objects are, of necessity, light; they are therefore 
ever present in the air, and are blown hither and thither by 
every breeze. When the seeds happen to alight on a suitable 
_ matrix, with favourable external conditions of light and moisture, 
_ they germinate, and form the so-called spawn ; if a large number 
all germinate together, the spawn becomes confluent, and forms 
* Read before the Society at the Fourth Meeting (Feb. 4, 1868) of the 
Third Winter Bession; 186728, an 8G ' 
