FUNGI IN GENERAL 103 



Fungi as known to the older botanists of the time of Eayand 

 Hudson. Another group of the naked-spored Fungi are those 

 parasites of living plants in which for the most part there are 

 two or three stages of existence, each terminated by a repro- 

 ductive body having the nature of a spore. These are minute 

 and pustular Fungi, popularly known as smuts, rusts, and 

 brands, but called by scientists the Ustilagineae and the 

 Uredineae, the spores of each generation being borne singly 

 upon short slender sporophores. The reproductive organs are 

 at first covered by the cuticle, which splits at maturity and 

 exposes the naked fruit. The third group are either sapro- 

 phytes or parasites, but still of minute size, and may be 

 superficial in the former case, or innate and erumpent in the 

 latter. The mycelium gives rise to erect threads, either 

 simple or branched, which produce at the apex, or distributed 

 over the branches, naked spores, either singly or in clusters, 

 capable of germination. These are the moulds, or technically, 

 the Hyphomycetes, which are regarded generally as imperfect 

 Fungi, a sort of transition stage or conidia of some higher and 

 more developed forms. The fourth group are also imperfect 

 Fungi, and may be either saprophytic or parasitic and of 

 minute size. In this aberrant group the majority do not 

 produce from the first exposed naked spores, in which feature 

 they are distinct from the three preceding groups ; but the 

 spores are enclosed within a globose or flask-shaped receptacle, 

 which dehisces at the apex when mature and permits the 

 spores to escape. In certain subsections the receptacle is 

 spurious or almost obsolete. In all cases the spores are pro- 

 duced singly at the tips of very short threads, and are 

 expelled when mature. These Fungi were formerly called 

 Coniomycetes, or constituted the bulk of the Coniornycetes, but 

 are now better known as the Sphaeropsideae and Melanconiaceae. 

 They are so small as hardly to be visible to the naked eye, 

 and hence have never acquired a popular name. These groups 

 represent the naked-spored Fungi, and, it will be observed, 

 contain only one group in which the individuals are sufficiently 

 large to attract general attention, and still to some untutored 

 minds represent all which they recognise as Fungi. Of the 

 other groups, the rusts and smuts, and the moulds, are 



