194 CURREY, ON REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS OF FUNGI. 



sometimes the two upper spores, considerably exceed in dia- 

 meter those spores which are lower in the chain. Fig. 3 is 

 maojnified 500, and fia;. 4, 350 diameters. 



In the first week of January in the present year, several dead 

 branches of a beech-tree, in a wood near the Weybridge Station 

 of the South-Western Railway, were covered with spots, each 

 consisting of a small circular black stain, with a central papilla. 

 A few days later, a large quantity of rain having fallen in the 

 interval, and the atmosphere having been unusually moist, 

 the spots had increased considerably in size, and assumed a 

 pulvinate or hemispherical shape. A vertical section of one 

 of these pulvinuli, carried down through the bark, presented 

 the appearance shown by fig. 5. The epidermis was lifted up, 

 and a conical cavity formed between that and the inner bark. 

 This conical cavity was completely filled with the brown- 

 coloured mycelium above-mentioned, the threads of which 

 lay excessively close to one another. This mycelium was 

 covered with the ordinary spores of Asterosporium Hoffmanni, 

 similar to the one shown in fig. 1. In one or two of the 

 plants many of the spores of the Asterosporium had assumed 

 the form shown in fig. 2, and in other instances, multicellular 

 spores without horns existed in considerable quantities, always 

 towards the lowest portion of the conical cavity. The gelati- 

 nous tubercle which crowned the cavity, and the section of 

 which is seen in fig. 5 above the laciniai of the epidermis, 

 consisted of elongated white threads enveloped in a mucous 

 medium, each thread bearing at its apex bunches of spores 

 such as those shown in figs. 3 and 4. A careful examination 

 of a number of specimens quite satisfied me that the white 

 threads were prolongations of the brown mycelium, the threads 

 of the latter becoming gradually narrower and paler in colour 

 in approaching towards their summit. In short, the pale 

 brown filaments which filled the cavity beneath the epidermis, 

 and which bore the spores of the Asterosporium, and the 

 elongated whiter filaments, which traversed the mucous sub- 

 stance of the gelatinous tubercle, constitute but one of the 

 same mycelium, a fact which necessarily leads to the inte- 

 resting conclusion that Asterosporium Hoffmanni and Myrioce- 

 phalum botryosporum are only varieties of fruit of the same 

 fungus. 



The forms above mentioned, however, are not the only 

 produce of this fertile mycelium. The moist atmosphere 

 which converted the dry papillate black spots into gelatinous 

 tubercles, had the effect of producing a further fructification 

 in the form of white colourless elliptical bodies, conidia in 

 fact, which were produced in abundance on the upper por- 



