STRUCTUBE. 



25 



ture has been specially illustrated by M. Tulasne,* through the 

 common species, Tremella mesenterica. This latter is of a 

 fine golden yellow colour, and rather 

 large size. It is uniformly composed 

 throughout of a colourless mucilage, 

 with no appreciable texture, in which 

 are distributed very fine, diversely 

 branched and anastomosing filaments. 

 Towards the surface, the ultimate 

 branches of this filamentous network 

 give birth, both at their summits and 

 laterally, to globular cells, which ac- 

 quire a comparatively large size. Fl <>- o.0aiocera 

 These cells are filled with a protoplasm, to which the plant 

 owes its orange colour. When they have attained their normal 

 dimensions, they elongate at the summit into two, three, or 

 four distinct, thick, obtuse tubes, into which the protoplasm 

 gradually passes. The development 

 of these tubes is unequal and not 

 simultaneous, so that one will often 

 attain its full dimensions, equal, per- 

 haps, to three or four times the dia- 

 meter of the generative cell, whilst 

 the others are only just appearing. 

 By degrees, as- each tube attains its 

 full size, it is attenuated into a fine 

 point, the extremity of which swells 

 into a spheroidal cell, which ulti- 

 mately becomes a spore. Sometimes these tubes, or spicules, 

 send out one or two lateral branches, each terminated by a spore. 

 These spores (about '006 to *008 mm. diameter) are smooth, and 

 deposit themselves, like a fine white dust, on the surface of the 

 Tremella and on its matrix. M. Leveillef was of opinion that 



* Tulasne, L. R. and C., " Observations on the Organization of the Tremellini,'' 

 in "Ann. des ScJ. Nat." 3 me se>. xix. (1853), pp. 193, &c. 



f M. Leveille, in "Ann. des Sci. Nat." 2 me se"r. viii. p. 328 ; 3 me ser. ix. 

 l>. 127 ; also Bonorden, "Handbuch der Mycologie," p. 151. 



FIG. 7. Treinella mesenlerica. 



