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INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF FUNGI 



at short distances, and then divided into cells ; as they mature 

 the apical cell falls away as a conidium, and then the next, 

 and the next, in succession, until exhausted ; this is Oidium 

 aceris, or the conidial stage of the Fungus which speedily 

 succeeds it. Little black dots appear to the naked eye to be 

 sprinkled over the white mycelium in the autumn. These are 

 the conceptacles which contain the later fruit, forming little 

 dark brown peridia of a nearly globose shape, and are attached 

 by delicate threads to the mycelium. Externally the con- 

 ceptacles are ornamented with a number of projecting thread- 

 like appendages, curled, or divided and curled, in both directions 

 at their tips. Internally the conceptacles enclose eight asci, 

 each holding eight sporidia. In this condition it is known as 

 Uncinula bicorriis, of which the Oidium produces the naked 

 conidia. 



We may refer incidentally to some Discomycetes, on the 

 authority of Tulasne, 1 who states that in Ocellaria, which occurs 

 in little tubercles on the twigs of trees, 

 a great number of the tubercles,, which 

 ought to be transformed into cup-shaped 

 receptacles, do not pass into this perfeet 

 state until after having produced very 

 short, narrow conidia, or spermatia, as 

 he calls them, or else stylospores on 

 short sporophores, such spores being 

 equal in size to the true sporidia to 

 be afterwards developed. Some of the 

 tubercles confine themselves to this 

 stylosporous generation, and always re- 

 main simple " pycnidia" — that is to 

 say, tubercles or cells enclosing stylospores. The normal 

 and fully- developed tubercles assume a cup shape, and con- 

 tain eight-spored asci, as is usual in the Discomycetes. The same 

 author also cites another species, Bulgaria inquinans (Fig. 41), 

 which in the adult state represents a very large, deep, black 

 peziza, is in its extreme youth an obtuse tubercle, the whole 

 mass of which is divided into ramified lobes, and is of very 

 irregular form. The extremities of these lobes become, towards 

 1 Tulasne, Comptes Bendus, vol. xxxv. (1852), p. 841. 



Fig. 41. — Jiulgaria 

 inquinans. 



