ORGANS OF CERTAIN FUNGI. 267 



distinct from the true i^^citlineous perithecia ; but there are 

 some discomycetous Fungi, lor instance, Peziza benesuada^ 

 Cenangium Frangidce, and Dermatea carpinea, in which the 

 spermatia and the perfect fructification occur in the same 

 part of the plant. From what will be stated hereafter, with 

 regard to Sphceria complanata, it would seem that in the latter 

 plant the same perithecium produces spermatia and asci suc- 

 cessively ; and if it be allowable to assume a law for the genus 

 from what occurs in one species, it would follow that the 

 spermogonium in Sphceria herbarum is not distinct from the 

 true perithecium. 



It will be proper here to mention certain other reproductive 

 bodies which I have observed in Sphceria Jierbarum ; they 

 are somewhat irregular in colour, shape, and size, and grow 

 directly from the mycelium. In colour they differ much 

 amongst one another, varying from a dull brown to the bright 

 yellow of the normal sporidia. In fig. 3 several of these bodies 

 are represented ; some of the larger of them strongly resemble 

 the spores of a Stemphylium or Sporidesmium, and others again 

 are hardly distinguishable from the regular sporidia of Sphce- 

 ria herbarum. These Ijodies come under M. Tulasne's defini- 

 tion of conidia, being gemma? or buds proceeding directly 

 from the mycelium. 



Those represented in fig. 3 occurred in company with full- 

 grown, ripe perithecia ; but their growth commences at a very 

 early period, and contemporaneously, or nearly so, with the 

 appearance of certain other bodies, which may also, perhaps, 

 have to be ranked amongst the varieties of fruit of Spliceria 

 herbarum; these last-mentioned bodies are globular vesicles, 

 which proceed from the end of short branches of the myce- 

 lium in its earliest stage. 



The sporidia of Sphairia herbarum appear to have a great 

 facility of germination, throwing out filaments from several 

 different partitions of the sporidia. On the 2nd of May in the 

 present year, I had placed a section of a perithecium upon a 

 slide under a piece of thin glass, for examination in the usual 

 way, and the fruit being particularly fine, I put the slide upon 

 damp moss under a bell-glass, with the view of keeping the 

 object moist until a drawing could be made. The weather 

 was very unfavourable for germination, for the long-prevalent 

 east wind was on that day more than ordinarily harsh and 

 cutting, and Fahrenheit's thermometer fell at night to 26° ; 

 moreover the room in which the slide was kept had a northern 

 aspect, no fire, and the character of being at all times cold. 

 Notwithstanding these circumstances I found, upon examining 

 the slide the next morning (May 3), that the sporidia had ger- 



