FUNGI, 



Q,6l 



mycelium is the sexual, the receptacle the asexual generation. This has indeed up 

 to the present time been directly observed only in a series of the smaller species of 

 Peziza and Ascobolus, but may well be assumed to exist also in the rest of the Disco- 

 mycetes. In Peziza cojijluens, the species in which the sexual reproduction of the 

 Ascomycetes was first discovered by De Bary in 1863, the process is as follows, according 

 to De Bary's and Tulasne's exhaustive researches: — The mycelium of P. conjiuens 

 grows on the ground ; branches arise at particular points of its hyphae which are directed 



- .,.Tmr r .., „ , ^ 



7. 



Fig. 183.— Conjugating apparatus oi Peziza cok- 

 nueits (after Tulasne, very strongly magnified) ; 

 in B is shown the commencement of the formation 

 of hypli« h, the result of fertilisation, from which 

 the receptacle is developed. 



Fig. \Z'2.—rcziza convexula; A vertical section of the whole 

 plant (X about 20) ; h hymenium or layer in which lie the asci ; 

 ^^ the tissue of the Fungus, surrounding the hymenium like 

 a cup at its margin q; at its base fine filaments proceed from 

 the tissue, which penetrate into the soil ; B a small part of 

 the hymenium (X about 50c) ; sh sub-hjnnenial layer of densely 

 interwoven hyphse ; a-/ asci, with intermediate slender para- 

 physes, in which are red granules. 



upwards and again branch abundantly; at the end of the branchlets the organs of 

 conjugation or fertilisation are produced in large numbers close together, forming 

 rosettes. The terminal cells of the stronger branchlets swell up into ovoid vesicles 

 (Fig. 183, a\ which put out a usually crooked prolongation (/). From another cell 

 of the same branch lying beneath this vesicle grows a club-shaped branchlet, the 

 Antheridium, the apex of which (i) unites with the prolongation just mentioned. After 

 this has taken place, a number of fine hyphse {h) shoot out of the filament which 



