308 BERKELEY, ON BRITISH FUNGOLOGY. 



Rubi, &c., which from analogy are supposed to have some- 

 thiiig to do with the impregnation of the normal fruit. In 

 this case the organs which contained them are called anthe • 

 ridia, or spermogonia, and the bodies themselves sperraato- 

 zoids. It is very doubtful at present whether the cells which 

 project from the gills in Agaricus, Coprinus, Boletus, Ike, are 

 of the same nature,, but it must be remembered that in many 

 cryptogams the mode of impregnation far more closely re- 

 sembles that in animals than that in phseuogams, and there- 

 fore it does not follow that a more perfect type may not exist 

 amongst the lower than amongst the higher fungi. Some- 

 times amongst the ascigerous fungi, as in Nectria i7iaurata, 

 there are asci containing, the one eight sporidia, the other a 

 multitude of minute granules. These secondary asci may 

 perhaps with as much justice be considered antheridia as the 

 bodies mentioned above. It is observable, however, that in 

 the other cases the spermatozoids are always produced at the 

 tips of delicate threads or their branchlets, while these little 

 bodies are produced freely in the sacs like sporidia. It is to 

 the Messieurs Tulasne that we are chiefly indebted for this 

 knowledge, as also for the curious facts which I am about to 

 mention. 



'' In many of the parasitic fungi, belonging to the same 

 section as the wheat mildew and bunt, a very curious process 

 takes place. Tlie reproductive organs, which from analogy 

 are commonly called spores, do not directly propagate the 

 plant. These bodies however germinate, and often at definite 

 points, exactly after the fashion of pollen- grains, and after a 

 time produce on their threads secondary and sometimes ter- 

 tiary spores capable of germinating. It is by these that the 

 plant is really reproduced 



" In the bunt the process is easily observed. If a portion 

 of the spores be laid on a piece of damp flannel or on a slip 

 of glass, and properly secured from evaporation, a Avhite floc- 

 cose matter is soon seen upon them, and when examined by 

 the microscope it is found that the spore first gives out an 

 obtuse thread, which produces at the apex a coronet of curved 

 delicate appendages like the spores of a Fusisporium, to which 

 genus they were referred before their true character was 

 ascertained ; these soon liecome connected by lateral threads, 

 and ultimately produce little oblong, somewhat oblique cells, 

 which germinate and reproduce the plant. The analogy 

 between this and the devolopment of pollen-grains on 

 the one hand, and the formation of the prothallus in the 

 higher cryptogams, is very curious." 



The following paragraph contains a useful hint^ which we 



