PROPAGATION OF FUNGI. 51 



Besides these propagative bodies, other extremely minute 

 bodies are produeed either on threads or in distinet perithecia 

 or cells in eertain Fungi, as Bulgaria inquinans, Hysterium 

 Rubi, etc., which from analogy are supposed to have some- 

 thing to do with the impregnation of the normal fruit. In 

 this case the organs which contained them arc called anthe- 

 ridia, or spermogonia, and the bodies themselves spermato- 

 zoids. It is very doubtful at present whether the cells which 

 project from the gills in Agaricus, Coprinus, Boletus, etc., 

 are of the same nature, but it must be remembered that in 

 many cryptogams the mode of impregnation far more closely 

 resembles that in animals than that in phsenogams, and 

 therefore it does not follow that a more perfect type may not 

 exist amongst the lower than amongst the higher Fungi. 

 Sometimes amongst the ascigei^ous Fungi, as in Nectria 

 inaurata, there are asci containing, the one eight sporidia, the 

 other a multitude of minute granules. These secondary asci 

 may perhaps with as much justice be considered antheridia as 

 the bodies mentioned above. It is observable, however, that 

 in the other cases the spermatozoids are always produced at 

 the tips of delicate threads or their branchlets, while these 

 little bodies are produced freely in the sacs like sporidia. It 

 is to the Messieurs Tulasne that we are chiefly indebted for 

 this knowledge, as also for the curious facts which I am about 

 to mention. 



In many of the parasitic Fungi, belonging to the same sec- 

 tion as the Wheat Mildew and Bunt, a very curious process 

 takes place. The reproductive organs, which from analogy 

 are commonly called spores, do not directly propagate the 

 plant. These bodies however germinate, and often at definite 

 points, exactly after the fashion of pollen-grains, and after a 

 time produce on their threads secondary and sometimes tcr- 



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