Reproduction in the Mushroom Tribe. By W. G. Smith. 21 



fungus represented is magnified 200 diameters, and the original was 

 about half the size of a pin's head (see AAA sketch in margin). 

 The nature of the hairy coating, which forms the veil and the cells 

 which are to form the future gills, are here clearly seen. This 

 figure shows the fungus in its Puff-ball condition at the time when 

 the cells are being actively produced. It contains only a small pro- 

 portion of the actual cells which go to make up a perfect fungus, 

 and represents probably a full week's growth from the spores. How 

 it is that the cells have an inherent property of building themselves 

 up into a particular design, no one knows any more than it is known 

 how the fine spark of life is kept up in these cells from one genera- 

 tion to another. 



The mycelium now grows in a radiate manner from the base of 

 the young plant, just as a germinating seed throws up a plumule 

 and throws down a radicle. This mycelium being the produce of 

 fertihzation is now capable, under certain conditions, of producing 

 new plants on certain spots on the threads. Spores are now un- 

 necessary, in the same way as fresh seeds are unnecessary where the 

 creeping root-stock of Couch-grass is present. Or the mycelium 

 may go to rest in the form of cords or thick threads, when it is 

 termed Ehizomorpha, or in the form of the knots or bulblets 

 known as Sclerotia, A similar state of things is common in many 

 perennial flowering plants, as Convolvulus sepium and Sagittaria 

 sagiitifolia, and they both at first arise from a seed in the same way 

 as a Mushroom arises from a spore. In Mushroom-spawn the 

 grower gets a material similar in nature to the root-stock in Couch- 

 grass. 



Fig. 8 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 as a necessity that the cells go on multiplying 

 all the fortnight, night and day, at the rate of 1114 to the 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 haira 



