156 MORPHOLOGY. 



parasitical*, we know scarcely anything. In the Fungi, too, we observe 

 a formation of the spores very similar to the copulation in Spirogyra ; 

 with this exception, that here the spore is developed quite regularly in the 

 middle of the tube formed by the fusion of the two papillae, f 



In more recent times, much has been said on the subject of the an- 

 theridia of the Fungi\ ; and Meyen has even discovered them in^Eci- 

 dium. What is to be thought of all this scientific juggling with the 

 word anther, will be subsequently discussed. The case is as follows in 

 the Hymenomycetes. Beside the sporiferous cells, between the sterile, 

 cells upon the hymenium, there are a few projecting, wider tubes, filled 

 with a turbid, mucous fluid (cystides, Leveille ; utricles, Berkeley ; para- 

 physes, Auctor) ; and this is all that we know of the matter. Klotsch, 

 according to his own statement, has observed that the spores coming in 

 contact with these tubes germinate more certainly than those in which 

 he w r as not positive of the same condition existing. || At present this 

 seems to be a very vague supposition, and proves nothing for the nature 

 of the anthers. As to the JEcidium anthers, an exanthema described by 

 Unger, and frequently occurring, together with the external eruption of 

 jEcidium it is asserted by Meyen, that a more accurate investigation of 

 its formation, as well as its relations in time and space, compel him to re- 

 gard it as a male JEcidium plant, although it may be proved by observa- 

 tion that there can be no question here of actual impregnation. Anthers 

 must really have become a fixed idea in the mind of Meyen, since, in 

 spite of everything, he can declare these structures to be such. The 

 facts furnish not only no compulsory arguments in favour of it, but 

 not even a shadow of possibility, that ^Ecidiolum cxanthematum (Ung.), 

 which develops alone previously, frequently upon leaves, on the other 

 side of which the JEcidia are formed, while sometimes no such con- 

 sequence follows, stand in any other relation to the JEcidium than 

 the Acne punctata does to the Acne rosacea, in the human subject, or 

 any one disease of the skin to another. Those imaginative physicians 

 who declare disease to be an independent organism, have, according to 

 this analogy, a wide field for the flights of their fancy, in seeking for 

 males and females among the different pocka, pustules, and vesicles. 



85. Filiform cells and the interwoven tissue are almost the 

 sole element of the Fungi. The nature of the cells, however, 

 varies from a readily deliquescent softness, fatty or greasy, as it 

 were, to the touch, to the most compact wood-like hardness, as in 

 German tinder. Spiral formations do not appear to occur. A few 

 Agarics contain a milky juice, which, in the case of the Ag. deli- 

 ciosus at least, is contained in definite small groups of parenchy- 

 matous cells. 



The hair-like cells in the sporocarp of the Trichia and the Arcyria 

 appear almost like spiral fibrous cells ; but I think that I have reason to 

 assert that they are merely flat band-like cells spirally twisted. In the 



* See Unger's excellent treatise, Die Exantheme der Pflanze, Vienna, ] 833. 



j- See Ehrenberg, in Transactions of the Ges. naturforschender Freunde, Berlin, 

 1820, vol. i. page ii. 



J See Wiegmann's Archiv, 1839, vol. ii. p. 51. 



Pflanzpathologie, p. 41. 



|| Dietrich's Flora of the Kingdom of Prussia, vol. vi., under the head Agarieut deli- 

 quescens. 



