



Fl'MAltlA' 





P. \',nllantii has iU aepal* narrower thiui the pedicel*, and many 

 time* shorter than the corolla. Globose fruit, scarcely pointed ; 

 bract* about at long as the pedicel*. The flowers are mostly white 

 with a purple lip. This is a British specie*, and is also found iu 

 sandy fit-Ms in the neighbourhood of Paris and Montpelier. 



With the exception of one or two species, this genus seems hardly 

 worth cultivation, having but a weedy and insignificant appearance. 

 Such however as have a climbing tendency, look well if sown under a 

 hedge and allowed to twine amongst the stems and branches. 



(Don, JtitMatzydeotu Plaxtt ; Babington, Manual of Brit. Hot.) 



Kl'MAKlAi K.E, Fumrvortt, a small natural order of Exogenous 

 Plants, consisting of slender-stemmed herbaceous plants, many of which 

 scramble up others by aid of their twisting leaf-stalks. They are 

 rather succulent, with watery juice. Their leaves, which havo no 

 stipule*, are repeitedly divided till the terminal lobes become small 

 ovate leaflets ; their flowers, which are extremely irregular, consist of 

 2 membranous minute ragged sepals, 2 exterior distinct linear petals, 

 and 2 others, which hold firmly together at the points; there are 6 

 stamens united into two parcels, and the ovary is a 1 -celled case with 

 1 seed or many seeds, whose placentation in parietal ; finally, the seeds 

 consist principally of albumen, in which there ripens a very small 

 embryo. Fuinai-ia offi<-inalis is one of the commonest of weeds. 

 Many are objects of cultivation by the gardener for the rake of their 

 showy flowers ; all ore reputed diaphoretics. They only inhabit the 

 cooler parts of the world, alike avoiding extremes of heat or cold. 

 Two species are found in the Cape of Good Hope. The affinities of 

 the order are with Dro(racta, Papareracece, Berbtridacea, and 

 Ertuuitatea. There are 15 genera and 110 species described. 



Kl'MITORY. [CoiiYDAUs; FUMARIA.] 



FUNA'RIA, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order Mtuci, 

 or Mosses. It has terminal fruit-stalks, with an oblique double 

 pi'rirtome, both the outer and the inner having each 16 teeth, 

 the inner ones opposite to those of the outer. There are three 

 British species of this moss : P. hygromttrica, P. Xuhlenbergii, and 

 F. Hilernita. 



P. hygrometrica has the leaves very concave, ovate, apiculate, entire, 

 the nerves excurrent ; the fruit-stalk curved, flexuosc. It is a native 

 of Great Britain, and is found by waysides and under hedg-s, especially 

 on spots where a wood-fire has been burning on the ground. It may 

 be thus constantly found on the site of gipsies' encampments. It has 

 obtained its specific name liyyrometrica from its fruit-stalk having the 

 property of twisting in different directions when moisture is applied 

 to it On taking a dry fruit-stalk into the hand and moistening the 

 lower part with the finger, the capsule will turn itself from the right 

 to the left by making two, three, or more turns ; on moistening the 

 tipper part in the name manner, the capsule turns itself more rapidly 

 in an opposite direction. Under the microscope the stalk exhibits an 

 elongated cellular tissue twisted in a spiral form. The cellular tissue 

 is not however turned uniformly, but at two-thirds of the length of 

 the stalk it commences to assume a straighter form, and at the upper 

 part it again turns itself, but more acutely, in au opposite direction 

 to that of the lower part. The cause of the turning iu two different 

 directions depends on this structure of the cellular tissue. The 

 capsule turns itself in an opposite direction to the spires which are 

 moistened, and the circumstance of its turning more rapidly on the 

 upper end being wetted, depends on the more acute angle made by 

 the upper spirts. The dryness of the fibres is not the cause of this 

 phenomenon, as the green fruit-stalks, although perfectly dried, do 

 not turn when moistened. The movements in this case are probably 

 owing to the shortening of the vegetable fibre by the contact of 

 moisture. In the green stalk the thick fluid contents of the cells 

 leave a precipitate when they are dried, which fills them up and 

 p. . tits the action of moisture upon them. In the ripened Btalk this 

 precipitate is (Unsolved and absorbed, and otherwise applied; and thus 

 the cells, being empty, act like hollow tubes. 



(Lankester, On the Structure of Fanaria 7/ >/</>"" 'n'ra; Ann. of 

 ffal. llitt. vol. iv. ; Link, Rfport on the Progrea of Jlotamy, 1841, 

 translated for the Kay Society, voL i. ; Hooker and Taylor, Mutcoloyia 

 Brilannica.) 



IT SGI, Under this name botanists comprehend not only the 

 various races of mushroom*, toadstools, and similar productions, but 

 a large number of microscopic plants forming the appearances called 

 mouldinew, mildew, smut, rush, brand, dry-rot, Ac. Notice has been 

 occasionally taken of these plants under their respective heads ; in 

 this place some general account will be given of them as a large 

 natural order. 



Nothing can well be more different than the extremes of develop- 

 ment of Fungi, if the highest and the lowest forms are contrasted ; 

 as for example, tho large fleshy Botdi, which grow on the trunks of 

 trees, and the microscopic mould-plant*, composed of thread* much 

 too delicate to be distinguished by the naked eye. Nevertheless, it 

 turn* out upon inquiry that the latter is only a simple form of the 

 former, or, in other words, that a Boletui is merely an enormous 

 aggregation of the vegetable timue constituting a Mucor, developed 

 the same plan, subject to the same influences, possessing a 

 Mtnilir chemical character, and propagating by means which are 

 altogether analogous. 



Viewed with reference to their whole extent, the plant* of this 



order may be described as cellular or filamentous bodies, having a 

 concentric mode of development, often when full grown 

 amorphous, nourished through their thallus (spav. 

 living in air, propagated by colourless or brown spore*, and some- 

 time* inclosed in asci and destitute of green gonidia. 



That they are cellular or filamentous may be easily ascertain' .] l.y 

 examining them with even an indifferent microscojie ; perhaps they 

 might be even simply described as cellular, for their filameuton.- 

 seems nothing but cells drawn out. Sometimes, as in the genus 

 they consist of spheroidal cells, having little connection with each 

 other, each cell containing propagating matter, and all sep: 

 from each other in the form of a fine powder when ripe : the smut iu 

 com is of this nature ; or. as iu Vylindroejiorium, the cells are trun- 

 cated cylinders not adhering, so far as we can see, and separating in 

 like manner when ripe. In plants of a more advanced organisation, 

 as the genus Manilla, the constituent cells are connected iu series, 

 whie.h preserve their spherical form, and also contain their own 

 reproductive matter; while in such plants as Anjeiyil/m the cells 

 partly combine into threads, forming a stem, and partly preserv. 

 spheroidal form for the fructification. (Fiy. 24.) From adhering in 

 simple series, the structure of Fungi advances to a combination of 

 such series into strata, wheuce result the various kinds of dr\ 

 thick leathery expansions developing amidst decaying timber; I 

 complicated form is thence prod need in the form of puff-balls, truffles, 

 Bclerotiums, and the like, iu which a figure approaching tint <>f a 

 sphere is the result, the reproductive cells being indiscriminately 

 confused in the interior of such plants ; and finally, the organisation 

 is so much complicated that, independently of a mere aggregation of 

 tissue, we find envelopes of various kinds for the. protection of the 

 propagating mass, as in Agaricui aud Geattrum, and special receptacles 

 for the propagating matter, as in liulctm and numerous others. 



It is probable however that in all 1'nmji, and certain that in most 

 of them, the first development of the plant consists in what wo here 

 call a filamentous matter, which radiates from the centre formed by 

 the spore (or seed), and that all the cellular spheroidal appeal 

 are subsequently developed, more especially with a view to the dis- 

 persion of the species. We purposely say dispersion, not multiplication ; 

 for it is certain that the filamentous matter is quite as capable of 

 multiplying a fungus as the cellular or spheroidal This is partly 

 proved by the common Mushroom (Agaricui campatrw), whoso fila- 

 mentous matter is commonly sold under the name of spawn for tho 

 artificial multiplication of that species in gardens ; and more com- 

 pletely by some recent experiments of M. Audouiu, who found that 

 the Botryti* Bauiana would inoculate caterpillars and other larva; as 

 readily by minute portions of its spawn a* by its spores or ueed-like 

 spheroidal particles. Although however there seems so much reason 

 to ascribe the presence of a filamentous spawn to all Fungi, yet it is 

 seldom seen by the ordinary observer ; for it develops out of sight, 

 under ground, in the midst of the decaying matter on which Fungi 

 BO often appear, or through the very substance of living matter; and 

 it is only the aggregation of spheroidal matter which we see. It 

 would appear that for the growth of the former darkness is necessary, 

 and that the latter is stimulated into existence by the action of a 

 feeble quantity of light. To apply to these parts familiar and 

 valent names, we should say that the stalk or stem radiates in dark 

 damp situations where it is buried from eight, and that the spheroidal 

 part or fructification alone is able to develop beneath the light of day. 

 The spawn of the mushroom is its stem ; the mushroom itself is the 

 fructification of the plant. 



It is generally believed that spiral cells are unknown in Funyi 

 Corda however, in his microscopical work on these plants, figures 

 them iu the genus Trichia, calling them Elaters, and thus assigning 

 them a nature analogous to that of the organs known by the same 

 name in Jungermanniaceie and Marchantiacece. They were first 

 detected by the younger Hcdwig. Berkeley has also detected them 

 in the genera Batarrca and Podaxon. 



The concentric growth of the filamentous stem or spawn of Fungi 

 may generally be witnessed in damp cellars, when they begin to grow 

 without impediment upon the walls or decaying wood. Nothing is 

 more common iu such situations than to see a beautiful white floccu- 

 lt nt mutter, which a breath almost will dissipate, spreading from a 

 nearly equally in all directions; such appearance^, rrm<Tly 

 called Byssi, have been ascertained to be the spawn of various kinds 

 of Fungi, the fructification of which is probably never 

 Evidence of the existence of a similar mode of growth may be found 

 when the spawn itself is not visible, as in fields where Fuiigi so often 

 spring up in circles or rings ; this arises from their stem having origi- 

 nally spread circularly from its point of origin, and thrown up its 

 fructification at the circumference of the circle so foi 



As Fungi spring up in great numbers where there is decaying 

 animal or vegetable matter, it has been supposed that the cells of 

 vegetables or animal* grow into these form* of life. But that they arc 

 not equivocally generated is sufficiently proved by each species having 

 its own particular kind of seed or spore; a provision that would In; 

 perfectly unnecessary if the species sprang up out of decaying matter 

 by the mere action of particular combinations of external forces. To 

 assert the existence of fortuitous creations in this class of plants is 

 contrary not only to analogy but to the plainest evidence. The 



