196 VEGETABLE PARASITES. 



The branches incline at various but always rather sharp angles, 

 so as to impart to the whole the appearance of a tree with its 

 branches a good criterion for our fungus. Regularity in the 

 number, the position, and the alternation of the branches does 

 not exist. Special organs for* proliferation were not noticed 

 (Reubold) ; it is, however, probable that the swellings and cells 

 at the ends of the filaments and branches are transformed into 

 spores. Objects are often seen which must be viewed as 

 transitions from simple enlargements to distinct separate cells, 

 which sit sometimes looser, sometimes firmer. Robin noticed 

 the same on other fungi. It is not to be doubted that the organs 

 for forming spores are less distinct here than is the case with 

 other lower fungi. 



Colour of the Thrush. It is mostly white, like coagulated milk 

 (lactucimen), sometimes dirty, yellowish, brownish, and even 

 blackish ; the aphthae are never of a pure white. The white 

 colour of the thrush results partly from the fungus, partly from 

 epithelial accumulations; at all events all epithelial sloughs in the 

 case of hypertrophies of glands and on other places, in the case 

 of measles, stomatitis, &c., are of the same colour, even if there 

 be only single layers. In private families where children are 

 fed well and acquire habits of cleanliness, this whitish colour 

 remains usually the prevailing colour, and it turns more yellow 

 only when the fungus is allowed to expand into large membranous 

 masses. Whence the dirty and brown colour comes from it is 

 difficult to say. Reubold thinks that it is only met with in the 

 membranous form, and agrees with Berg, Valleix, and Robin, 

 that it lies in the fungus itself, and in the colouring of its spores 

 which occur in such large quantities, and that it is not caused by 

 any extraneous colouring substances. The great formation of 

 spores, or the dismemberment of the epithelium, which turns yellow, 

 may either perhaps cause this colour ; perhaps, also, the age of 

 the spores. One is reminded of the white colour of the boletus 

 in its early stage of growth, and of its brown colour when old. 

 The thrush-fungus lastly turns brown on drying. The still darker, 

 blackish-brown and black colour is the result of coloured sub- 

 stances used as medicines, blood, pus, or of the complication with 

 the ulcers of the mucous membrane (Berg). 



Seat of Thrush according to Reubold. The thrush-membrane is 

 siad to lie sometimes under the epithelium, sometimes leaving 

 the glands quite free, or proceeding from them, or sometimes 



