120 On the Reproductive Organs of the Lichens and Fungi. 



acrogenous, should receive, like the Itzigsohnian corpuscles which 

 they wholly resemble, the name of spermatia, which merely con- 

 veys the idea of a body destined, in some manner or other, to 

 the office of reproduction. 



M. Fries applies the name of conidia to all the reproductive 

 bodies which are not, as he thinks, normal spores, so that after 

 the foregoing statements, this designation would embrace very 

 dissimilar organs. I would propose to restrain the application 

 of it to the gemmcE properly so-called, if it be agreed to regard 

 as such the reproductive cells which arise directly from the my- 

 celium (as in the ErysipJies, Ascophora, and other MucedinecB) and 

 appear to correspond especially to the gongyli of the Muscinese 

 and Hepaticse. Leaving to it the general acceptation, the term 

 conidia would be employed whenever it is impossible to determine 

 the nature of a reproductive body which it is required to describe. 

 The difficulty of this problem will appear when the fungus 

 under examination does not present the different kinds of repro- 

 ductive organs united ; but then analogical reasoning will be 

 usefully adopted. If, for example, Melasmia, the precursors of 

 Rhytisma, are compared with the first condition of Tympanis, 

 there will be an inclination to regard the seminules of these Me- 

 lasmia as spermatia, rather than as stylospores of the future Rhy- 

 tisma. Sphceria Laburni furnishes the interpretation of all the 

 Sphar'ice constructed upon the same plan ; its cytispore, like that 

 of its congeners, will represent the receptacle of the spermatittj 

 and its sporocadus the stylosporous peritheda. 



Another difficulty will be found in reuniting the elements of a 

 single species of Fungus when they are not met with associated 

 together in nature. If the Fungi above-named prove that these 

 elements are often assembled together, so that there can be no 

 doubt of their natural relations ; there are others which would 

 show in different degrees the dissociation of the different con- 

 stituent terms of the species. For example, we find the yellow 

 stroma of Spharia stilbostoma sometimes fertile at the same time 

 in ascophorous peritheda and in Melanconium [conidia) ; some- 

 times, on the contrary, devoid of one or other of these productions. 

 The same is true of the stroma of Spharia favacea, although, 

 more frequently, it developes the Spharia and their conidia 

 isolated. In Spliar'ia nivea, we find on the same area, circum- 

 scribed by the black margin of the mycelium, cytisporous tubercles 

 and tubercles producing Spharia ; we also find, but much more 

 rarely, tubercles which are cytisporous only in part, one half 

 giving birth to thecigerous peritheda. The stroma of Spharia 

 castanea, N., most frequently presents the peritheda and the 

 cytispora united ; yet it commonly produces the latter to the ex- 

 clusion of the former, or vice versa, and does not enter into the 



