( 9) 
CHAPTER III. 
SPERMOGONIA AND THE SO-CALLED SPERMATIA. 
THESE bodies are produced by the mycelium, which arises 
directly from the entrance of the germ-tube of a promy- 
celial spore, or from a perennial mycelium permeating the 
tissues of the host-plant. 
The hyphz which are destined to form a spermogonium 
bec6me interwoven into an inextricable network in the 
subepidermal tissues of the host-plant. They pass for the 
most part between the cells, and are found more frequently 
septate where a spore-bed is about to be formed than when 
they are encountered elsewhere in the tissues of the host- 
plant. Their contents are watery and transparent. From 
this tangled mesh, immediately beneath the epidermis, are 
given off a great number of branches of much smaller 
diameter, as a rule about 2 or 3u. The general direction 
of these finer branches is towards the epidermis, They 
incline towards a central point, however, and so come 
together, forming a pyriform or subglobose body, the upper 
part of which is covered only by the cuticle of the host- 
plant. This body soon assumes a pyriform or flask-shaped 
contour (Plate I. Fig.3). The neck of the flask bursts through 
the epidermis as a minute conical point, which can be seen to 
consist of a vast number of straight hyphe, parallel to one 
another in the main, but all sloping upwards, converging 
