36 MICEOSCOPIC FUNGI. 



cessor^ is devoted to this very subject of a multi- 

 plicity of form in the fructification of these plants. 

 Illustrated by the most exquisite of engravings 

 which art has ever produced^ it also unfolds many 

 a page in the history of these organisms^ for which 

 mycologists were not altogether unprepared. In 

 noticing this work^ one of our most eminent 

 authors on mycological subjects quotes as an 

 example Dofhidia rihis, Fr._, one of our most 

 common fungi^ which occurs in the form of little 

 black shields on dead twigs of currants and goose- 

 berries. Here we have^ he says^ naked spores 

 {conidia) growing on the external cells of the 

 stroma; we have naked spores of a second kind 

 {stylospores) produced in distinct cysts [pycnides) ; 

 we have minute bodies of a third kind [spermatia) 

 produced again in distinct cysts^ resembling very 

 closely similar bodies in lichens; and we have a 

 third kind of cysts^ containing the usual sporidia 

 in sausage- shaped hyaline sacs {asci). Even here, 

 however^ we have not done with marvels; for if 

 the stylospores are placed in water^ they produce in 

 the course of twenty-four hours conidia of a second 

 order^ exactly analogous to those which arise on 

 the germination of the spores of the rusts and 

 mildews which affect our cereals and other 

 plants. 



Further reference is also made to three species 

 of moulds^ which M. Tulasne has shown to be only 

 varied forms of the mycelium of a species of 



