1847.] Brand in the Cereals. 189 



pears to be composed of the dark line of the basilar layer, and 

 from the middle to the margin exhibits yellow, unequally connect- 

 ed rays (Fig. 23). On considering the outer surface still more 

 closely, the ergot, in almost all the portions I have seen, is found 

 covered with four furrows, or cracks on the side lengthways, which 

 often penetrate through the black covering. If now we examine 

 the individual parts of the already ripened kernel from without, 

 with the microscope, we find that the rime, or white growth, is 

 spread in fine downy masses (Fig. 24, a), over the black covering 

 b, and that it is formed from the fruit bed (frucht-lager) of the 

 fungus which thus transforms the seed. Cut off a very thin sec- 

 tion; but it must be taken off" through the fine downy mass of the 

 fruit bed, without destroying it; we find on examining from the 

 interior outward, (1), that the inner white mass of the ergot con- 

 sists of an extraordinarily fine cellular tissue (Fig. 25, d), which 

 in section under water, gives out drops of oil more or less large 

 (Fig. 25, e). This viewed by a stronger magnifier, consists of 

 small six-angled somewhat thick walled cells (Fig. 27), each of 

 which contains within it one or two little drops of oil. The oil 

 is yellowish, and on the light being passed through it, greenish. 

 This mass of cellular tissue forms the peculiar bearer of the fun- 

 gus, and as it were runs into the stem and cap, and towards the 

 outside terminates in a dark black line (Fig. 25, c), which consists 

 of a simple layer of black cells, imparts the black color to the 

 fungus seen from without, and forms an extremely thin layer, on 

 which (2) the fruit bed (frucht-lager) of the fungus toward the 

 outside rests. This consists of a single layer of fibrous, single one 

 celled undivided basidial cells (Fig. 25, b), of white color, which 

 towards the upper part produce and accumulate the spores (Fig. 

 25, a, 3). The spores form fine down that may be rubbed off", on 

 the spurred grain, and to this is to be attributed in a great degree 

 the poisonous effects of the ergot. They are, viewed when pow- 

 erfully magnified (Fig. 26) elongated, ellipsoidal, often curled up- 

 on the side, smooth, greenish-white; their spore skin is extraor- 

 dinarily delicate, transparent, lying close to the crooked, greenish, 

 wax-like, transparent spore kernels, and frequently containing 

 two greenish little drops of oil. The spores are from 0.00030 to 

 0.00035 Paris inch in length. When placed on fresh moist fruit 

 knots or on other portions of the plant, they germinate with ex- 

 traordinary rapidity and on the object bearer of the microscope 

 under water we can see them germinate also in twelve to twenty- 

 four hours, while they lengthen out one or two points of their 

 spore skin into fibres, and these fibres afterwards open into cells, 

 whereby from the branching out at the openings as it were, a new 

 root texture is formed for the future fungus. It is a matter of re- 

 gret that Messrs. Queckett's and Francis Bauefs illustrations of 



