Spore-formadon among HypJiomycetes. 4,'U 



tween the diflferent spores not only remained empty and 

 therefore colourless and transparent, but at last they were 

 marked by a circular division just in the middle (%. 3), in 

 consequence of which the threads broke up into fragments 

 (fig. 4), each of which showed asporiferous part in its middle 

 and two short tubular appendages. In our case, therefore, 

 there can no longer be any doubt as to the endogenous for- 

 mation of the spores, and we are justified in reintroducing the 

 genus Sporendonema and naming the species observed Spo- 

 rendonema terrestre. 



The question whether any dissepiment is to be seen at the 

 place of the circular division must be answered in the nega- 

 tive. Moreover, no trace of dissepiments is to be seen between 

 the spores and their tubular appendages. 



Before concluding, I may be allowed to remind the reader 

 that the formal ion of spores within the threads of some 

 Hyphomycetes has been previously observed, but that the 

 phenomenon was always confined to the threads of the 

 mycelium. The bodies capable of germination were regarded 

 (none the less on account of their form differing from the ordi- 

 nary appearance of the true spores) less as spores than as a 

 sort of brood-buds, and they were never seen to be set free 

 unless the walls of the thread in whicli they were produced 

 had disappeared. This formation cannot, of course, be placed 

 in the same line with that observed by us, and therefore does 

 not detract from the singularity of the phenomenon that we 

 have observed. 



We may remark, further^ that our fungus is one of those 

 which stand on the boundary between the '' white " and 

 " black " moulds of the English authors, the Mucedineaj and 

 Dematiei of the Latin-writing mycologists, or, in other words, 

 which combine in themselves the colourless threads of the 

 first with the darker- coloured spores of the second group. 

 In accordance with custom, however, such forms are to be 

 inscribed under the Mucedineaj or " white moulds." 



That the name of " conidia," which applies exclusively to 

 exogenous germ-granules, cannot be employed for the endo- 

 genous granules of our Sporendonema terrestre is a matter of 

 course. There is no reason, we think, to refuse the name of 

 spores to these productions. In this respect, also, our fungus 

 therefore holds a middle place between two very different 

 groups of Fungi, but now between a lower group, with which 

 it agrees in its simple structure, and a higher one, the more 

 complex forms of which are at once distinguished by the for- 

 mation of endogenous spores. 



Of the higher fungus with which our mould may stand in 



30* 



