76 Prof. H. Karsten on the Fecundation of the Fungi, 



regarded as gonidia or so-called spermatia, but are the first 

 commencement of the fruit of the Fungus, is also proved by 

 their subsequent stages of development. 



Thus similar oval cells, but with rather longer pedicels, had 

 beside them a cylindrical cell likewise springing from the myce- 

 lium, and only slightly exceeding its filament in thickness. I 

 suppose that such cylindrical cells would also have sprouted 

 forth near each of the two cells figured (fig. 1) when these had 

 become a little older. But I once found this cylindrical fila- 

 ment, which consists of two cells, and slightly exceeds the oval 

 terminal cell of the filament first produced, closely applied to 

 the latter, and containing a turbid fluid in its superior cell 

 (fig. 2). The oval cell was then not filled with such uniform 

 contents as in its younger states, but with a vesicular frothy 

 matter, which had drawn together towards the side of the 

 cell which was in contact with the neighbouring filament, so 

 that in this cell, on the side opposite to the latter filament, 

 there was a space free from the albuminous contents and filled 

 only with watery fluid. 



The most remarkable thing about this object seemed to me 

 to be the circumstance that the oval terminal cell of the first- 

 formed branch appeared at its point of contact with the cylin- 

 drical terminal cell of the later-formed branch to be, as it were, 

 pressed into the latter, and even when moved and pulled, by 

 which means the aj)ex of the filiform branch was torn away, it 

 did not separate therefrom, and was apparently amalgamated 

 with it at this point of contact. Such an amalgamation of two 

 neighbouring mycelium-filaments is very unusual in this fungus; 

 and we must therefore suppose that these two amalgamated 

 branches had some extraordinary relations to each other. 



Moreover this spot where the amalgamation took place pos- 

 sessed a structure difi'erent from that of the rest of the walls of 

 these two branches. For while in other parts the membranes 

 of these two branch- cells presented no difference from those of 

 the mycelium-filaments (unless, perhaps, the wall of the oval 

 cell might be rather more delicate), this point of contact and 

 amalgamation was rather more thick-walled, more turbid, rough, 

 and, so far as could be judged from the position, which was not 

 very favourable for examination, was somewhat similar to the 

 finely porous perforated walls. 



The turbid, granular contents which flowed out on the rup- 

 ture of the terminal cell of this branch, and mixed with the 

 water in which the object lay, showed small elongated cellules 

 filled with clear contents : these, as it appeared to me, are the 

 small dark corpuscles like granules of cell- contents, which by 

 cudosmosis of the water in which they floated became so far 



