THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



[THIRD SERIES.] 

 No. 110. FEBRUARY 1867. 



XVI. — On the Fecundation of the Fungi. By H. Karsten*. 



My observations on the development of the apothecium of Cceno- 

 gonium\ led me at once to the probable supposition of an analo- 

 gous process in the formation of the fruit in the Fungi. I saw 

 the fruit of a Lichen^ the apothecium of Ccenogonium, with all 

 its spore-sacs and paraphyses, forming an hymenial stratum, 

 develope itself from a single cell equivalent to a gonidial cell, 

 and, indeed, after a previous coalescence, and apparently after 

 the minghng of its contents with those of a branch of the cortical 

 cells closely applied to its surface, which is furnished with po- 

 rously thinned spots. 



The question immediately arose whether the partly very simi- 

 larly constructed fruit of the Discomycetes, as well as of the 

 other alhed tubular Fungi, and even those of theHymenomycetes, 

 were not produced in consequence of a similar process of copu- 

 lation J. The confirmation of this idea would lead to simple 

 laws as to the multiplication of plants, expressible in the fol- 

 lowing manner : — 



1. The typical form of every true species of plants is propa- 

 gated and maintained by sexually produced germs. 



2. Whilst the fecundated germ-cell is developed, in the Pha- 

 nerogamia, into a single germ which usually rests in its enve- 

 lopes for a longer or shorter period, and in the vascular Crypto- 

 gamia into one which evolves itself at once, in the cellular 

 Cryptogamia it is developed generally into a composite fruit 

 containing numerous seeds §. 



* Translated by W. S.Dallas, F.L.S., from * Botanischellntersuchunffen,* 

 1866, pp. 160-169. 



t Das Geschleclitsleben der Pflanzen und die Parthenogenesis, 1860, 

 and Gesammelte Beitrage, p. 317- [Annals, 3 ser. vol. viii. p. 203.] 



X Gesammelte Beitrage, p. 341. 



§ Das Geschlechtsleben der Pflanzen und die Parthenogenesis. Ges. 

 Beitr. p. 340. 



Ann. ^ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. xix. 6 



