142 



FUNGI. 



distorted in a long spire. Sometimes it has been seen divided 

 into two branches, nearly equal to each other. The spore in 

 germinating empties itself of its plastic contents, contracts, and 

 diminishes in size. The pseudospores of ^Ecidium crassum, P., 

 emit three long filaments, which describe spirals, imitating the 

 twistings of the stem of a bean or bindweed. In jEcidium Violce, 

 Sclmm, one filament is produced, which frequently rolls up its 

 anterior extremity into a spire, but more often this same extremity 

 rises in a large ovoid, irregular vesicle, which continues the axis 

 of the filament, or makes with it a more or less decided angle. 

 In whatever manner placed, this vesicle attracts to it all the 

 orange protoplasm, and hardly does this become settled and 

 complete before the vesicle becomes the starting point of a new 

 development, for it begins to produce at its apex a filament, 

 more slender than the previous one, stiff, and unbranched. 



According to M. Tulasne, the germination of the pseudospores 

 of JEcidium Euphorbia on Euphorbia sylvatica differ in some 

 respects from the preceding. When dropped 

 upon water these spores very soon emit a 

 short tube, which ordinarily curves in an 

 arch or circle, almost from its origin, attain- 

 ing a length of from three to six times the 

 diameter of the spore ; then this tube gives 

 rise to four spicules, each of which pro- 

 duces a small obovate or reniform sporule ; 

 the generation of these sporules absorbs all 

 the plastic matter contained in the germ- 

 tube, which permits of the observation that 

 it was divided into four cells correspond- 

 ing with the number of spicules. These 

 FIG. si.-Germinationof s P rules germinate very rapidly from an 

 jEcidium Euphorbia (syiva- indefinite point of their surface, emitting a 

 eicce), Tulasne. filiform process, which is flexuous and very 



delicate, not extending more in length than three times that of 

 the long axis of the sporule, often less, reproducing at its 

 summit a new sporule, differing in form and size from that 

 which preceded it. This sporule of the second formation be- 



