VII. 



GERMINATION AND GROWTH. 



IN describing the structure of these organisms in a previous 

 chapter, the modes of germination and growth from the spores 

 have been purposely excluded and reserved for the present It 

 may be assumed that the reader, having followed us to this 

 poiiit, is prepared for our observations by some knowledge of 

 the chief features of structure in the principal groups, and of the 

 main distinctions in the classification, or at least sufficient to 

 obviate any repetition here. In very many species it is by no 

 means difficult to induce germination of the spores, whilst in 

 others success is by no means certain. 



M. de Seynes made the Hymenomycetes an especial object of 

 study,* but he can give us no information on the germination 

 and growth of the spore. Hitherto almost nothing is positively 

 known. As to the form of the spore, it is always at first 

 spherical, which it retains for a long time, while attached to 

 the basidia, and in some species, but rarely, this form is final, as 

 in Ag. terreus, &c. The most usual form is either ovoid or regu- 

 larly elliptic. All the Coprini have the spores oval, ovoid, more 

 or less elongated or attenuated from the hilum, which is more 

 translucent than the rest of the spore. This last form is rather 

 general amongst the Leucospores, in Amanita, Lepiota, &c. At 

 other times the spores are fusiform, with regularly attenuated 

 extremities, as in Ag. crmincus, Fr., or with obtuse extremities, as 



* Seynes, J. de, " Essai d'une Flore Myeologique de la Montpellier," &c. 

 (1863), p. 30. 



