Miscellaneous, 303 



Beneath this line there is a zone of 1-2 millims. in thickness, 

 which, under a low magnifying-power, appears finely speckled with 

 spots of a darker tint than the rest of the tissue. These spots 

 correspond with the foci of development of the rounded, oval, or 

 sometimes baculoid corpuscles which I have already described, and 

 which I had only regarded as having arrived accidentally, or in 

 consequence of the old age of the fungus, at the surface of the pileus. 

 The zone that I have indicated as being the centre of their formation 

 is prolonged into the pedicle ; but none of it is found in the middle 

 of the parenchyma, or in the vicinity of the lower surface which 

 bears the hymenophorous tubes, or among these tubes. 



All the Fistulince that I have examined hitherto have presented 

 this curious arrangement, whether they came from the Cevennes, 

 the environs of Paris, or even the Himalaya, as I have ascertained 

 from a specimen from the latter region, which is preserved in the 

 Museum, in Montague's herbarium. These conidia, far from 

 reaching the outer surface, as if they were the product of a foreign 

 parasite, only show themselves at the surface of the fungus after the 

 destruction of the most external cellular layers; thus their dis- 

 semination can only be effected, as in the case of the spores of 

 truffles, at the moment of the putrefaction of the fungus. 



The cells which bear these conidia or sporiform bodies are more 

 delicate and transparent than the others ; but it is easy to prove that 

 they have issued from the parenchyma itself. Sometimes they are 

 long and bear a bunch of these little bodies ; sometimes they are 

 seen to detach themselves from a cell of the parenchyma in the form 

 of a pedicle bearing oidy one such body, and not exceeding in 'length 

 the longest axis of the latter. 



Iodized chloride of zinc does not give the characteristic reaction of 

 cellulose, either with the cells of the parenchyma, or with the spores, 

 or with the conidia or pseudospores just mentioned. This reagent 

 embrowns the reservoirs of proper juice, and reddens or renders 

 yellow the cells of the parenchyma, according as they contain more 

 or less plasmatic fluid. The conidiophorous cells, the fineness of 

 which M. de Bary says he perceived when they were brought into 

 contact with alcohol, and which, for this reason, he supposes not to 

 originate directly from the parenchyma, become yellow under the 

 influence of iodized chloride of zinc, and have a very pale tint, which 

 distinguishes them from most of the surrounding cells ; but in this 

 they behave exactly in the same way as many other cells of the same 

 fungus, either subhymenial cells, or cells of large diameter which, 

 like the latter, have exhausted all the juices which they contained 

 for the benefit of new formations. 



Each of the observations that I have just cited contradicts the 

 assertions made by M. de Bary in opposition to me (Handbuch der 

 physiologischen Botanik, 1866, Bd. ii. p. 193); and although I 

 regret that I thus disagree with that learned mycologist, my ob- 

 servations, often repeated and varied, leave no doubt in my own 

 mind. 



It remains for me to indicate in the organization of the Fistulince 



