of some Stylospores of Siph^Yids, 359 



creasing cells are contiguous"^ (fig. 8), in which case, however, 

 the two halves generally adhere to each other for a long time on 

 one side, whilst one of the two daughter cells thus still connected 

 begins to elongate in the same direction, and grows up into a 

 germ-tube filled with granular fluid (figs. 9, 10). 



The capilliform appendages of the spores are retained until 

 the germ-tube has attained a considerable size ; afterwards they 

 become indistinct, and at last are no longer to be detected. In 

 this way the criterion is lost as to the nature of the mycehum 

 which afterwards occurs at the spot where these germ-tubes were 

 developed; so that a confusion may easily arise. To me, how- 

 ever, the mycelia, from their great delicacy, appeared so like 

 the germ-tubes that I thought they might be taken for products 

 of the latter, especially as they occurred on those parts of the 

 object-slide where the greatest quantity of spores had germinated. 

 They grew very slowly upon the shde kept in moist air ; and it 

 was not until after the lapse of six weeks that some branches 

 rose, like hyphse, at the apex of which single, very small, oval, 

 opaque, and rather dark sporidia w^re developed. By the side 

 of the few developed mycelia the greater part of the spores re- 

 mained unaltered, without germinating. Experiments made 

 upon living plants of Festuca produced no results. 



Besides the Sphcerice, there was in the tissues of the Festuca 

 a second mycelium, recognizable by the rather greater diameter 

 of its tubes ; of this a few branches had grown out through the 

 stomata, and bore Sporidesmium-s])ores. I could not ascertain 

 that there was any connexion between this fungus and the 

 Sphoiria. As no tubular spores of this fungus were observed, 

 but only the one developmental form, its relationships also re- 

 main doubtful for the present. The rather dense, soft, Sclero- 



* Exactly similar phenomena are observed in the increase of the joint- 

 cells of the (Edogonia, Spirogyrce, and similar Confervaceae (Gesammelte 

 Beitraj^e, pp. 'A7') & 427, taf. 23 & 25; Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3. 

 vol. xiii. pp. 12 & 71, pis. 5 & 7)- Although the Fungi in general 

 are excellent objects for the study of the origin and development of cells, 

 these sj)ores, partly from their small size, partly on account of the albumi- 

 noid, o))aque contents in which the nuclear cells are imbedded, are not 

 npplicable to the former purpose; but the growth and enlargement of 

 the two daughter cells may be observed here upon the object-slide as 

 distinctly as in many other cells of Fungi and Alga;. It is only by 

 such actual observation of cell-development, and not by hypothetical 

 combinations of different developmental states of cambium-cells, that 

 our knowledge of cell-life can now be advanced : of this the workers iu 

 this department of our science must first of all convince themselves, iu 

 order that we may at last arrive at a conclusion with regard to this imjior- 

 tant fundamental point in physiology. The production and development 

 of the cambium-cells can only be correctly understood by means of the 

 analogy of these nctually observed developmental phenomena. 



