spore-formation among Ht/phomycetes. 429 



vestigated and described by Desraazitires on the one hand 

 and by Corda on the other, and seeing that the last-named 

 author had already employed the name Torula Casei, another 

 name had to be invented for the typical 8porendonema Casei 

 and that of Torula sporendonema was selected for it by 

 Berkeley. This contradiction in terms can only be accepted 

 from a describer's and not from a logical point of view. 



Desmazi^res's error consisted in this : in his Sporendonema- 

 threads he had regarded the red contents of the joints, which 

 contrasted strongly with the colourless walls, as spores, and 

 had overlooked the dissepiments which really existed. 

 Further, his notion that the tops of the Sporendonema-{\\vQiidi% 

 become colourless in consequence of the evacuation of the 

 red spores previously enclosed in them was shown to be in- 

 correct * ; and the escape of the spores at other parts of tlie 

 thread might equally well be regarded as in accordance with 

 the truth. The presence of dissepiments and the interruption 

 of the threads at the level of these dissepiments seems to be 

 common to Sporendonema and Torula, and in accordance 

 with this there can no longer be any notion of perfect spores 

 enclosed in the threads of the fungus under examination. 



Among the older writers who accepted Uesmazi^res's obser- 

 vation as correct, we may name, as one of the most celebrated 

 Elias Fries. He even goes so far as to include Aclihja pro- 

 lifera, a Saprolegniacean, which, however, at that time, had 

 been only very briefly described, under the new genus, and to 

 refer to it also the known Torula epizoa, giving it the name 

 of Sporendonema Sebi. All these erroneous determinations 

 were corrected by later mycologists furnished with better in- 

 struments ; but at the same time Sporeyidonema was finally 

 erased from the list of genera in the department of Fungi. 



Under these circumstances it cannot excite any astonish- 

 ment that I was exceedingly surprised when, some weeks ao-o 

 I found in a tan-bed in one of the hothouses of the Amsterdam 

 Botanical Garden some lumps of earth covered with a net- 

 work of threads, partly white, partly brownish, the consti- 

 tuents of which, upon careful examination, appeared to me 

 to satisfy the chief requirements of the genus Sporendonema 

 established by Desmazi^res, but consigned to oblivion by 

 later writers. 



The above-mentioned network consisted (fig. 1) partly of 

 creeping and partly of erect, colourless, irregularly branching 

 threads, of which the former, as usual, represented the vege- 



* The colourlessuoss of these tops may merely be due to the fact that 

 no dissepiments are as yet formed, and no coloured protoplasm has yet 

 been produced. 



Ann.& Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. xix. 30 



