450 LAWS OF MULTIPLICATION. 



which the reproductive apparatus is relatively so enormous as 

 to constitute the ostensible plant, a similar subordination of 

 the individual to the race, and a similarly-immense fertility. 

 Thus, as quoted by Dr. Carpenter, Fries says " in a single in- 

 dividual of Reticularia maxima, I have counted (calculated?) 

 10,000,000 sporules." It needs but to note the clouds of 

 particles, so minute as to look like smoke, which ripe puff- 

 balls give off when they are burst, and then to remember 

 that each particle is a potential fungus, to be impressed with 

 the almost inconceivable powers of propagation which these 

 plants possess. The Lichens, too, furnish examples. 



Though they are nothing like so prolific as the Fungi (the 

 difference yielding, as we shall hereafter see, further support 

 to the general argument), yet there is a great production of 

 germs, and a proportionate sacrifice of the parental indi- 

 viduality. Considerable areas of the thallus develop into the 

 fruit-bodies characteristic of the various fungi which, com- 

 bined with algae, form the different lichens (various members 

 of the Ascomycetes and the Basidiomycetes) . From these are 

 produced great numbers of ascospores or basidiospores, as the 

 case may be. Very many lichens also reproduce themselves 

 by means of Soredia, i.e., little masses of algal cells closely 

 wrapped in a weft of fungal hyphaB. Some con- 



trasts presented by the higher Algce may also be named as 

 exemplifying the inverse proportion between the size of the 

 individual and the extent of the generative structures. While 

 in the smaller kinds relatively large portions of the fronds are 

 transformed into reproductive elements, in the larger kinds 

 these portions are relatively small : instance the Macrocystis 

 pyrifera, a gigantic sea-weed which sometimes attains a 

 length of 1,500 feet, of which Dr. Carpenter remarks 

 "This development of the nutritive surface takes place at 

 the expense of the fructifying apparatus, which is here quite 

 subordinate." 



When we turn to vegetal aggregates of the third order of 

 composition, facts having the same meaning are conspicuous. 



