14 GERMINATION OF TELEUTOSPORES 
GERMINATION OF THE TELEUTOSPORE. 
We now approach the consideration of a process which has 
been in the past much discussed, and upon the right inter- 
pretation of which the whole question of the systematic position 
of the Uredinales depends. Each cell of the teleutospore of 
P. Caricis has one germ-pore, though some genera allied to 
Puccinia have teleutospores with more than one germ-pore to 
each cell, e.g. Phragmidiwm, Uropyxis, Calliospora. The germ- 
pore of the upper cell is in the thickening at the summit, that 
of the lower cell is lateral and just beneath the septum. Each 
of these pores is a canal passing through the cell-wall, and 
covered only by the cuticle. Through these pores the germ-tube 
passes, first appearing as a roundish swelling, the protoplasm 
being surrounded by the thin endospore. This then elongates, 
the nucleus squeezes through the relatively narrow pore and 
enters the tube where it divides 
twice, and forms four superim- 
posed cells, separated by thin 
cell-walls (Fig. 16). This row of 
four cells was formerly known as 
a promycelium, but is now called 
a basidium. If kept in water 
these cells can round off and 
separate from each other!, and 
germinate by sending out a tube, 
se seve pe ets pati like the mycelial cells and spores 
same, germinating and forming of many fungi. But if ina damp? 
pteaeee cee a atmosphere, each cell without 
separation produces a sterigma at 
the end of which a basidiospore is formed, like the basidiospores 
of Agaricini. These basidiospores can germinate at once, even 
before they are detached from the sterigma, by sending out 
a short tube which may produce a conidium resembling the 
basidiospore at its end. 
1 This method is said to take place normally in Barclayella. 
* It is noted by many observers that, in a state of nature, it is a layer of 
dew, not of rain, that is favourable to germination. 
