STRUCTURE. 25 
ture has been specially illustrated by M. Tulasne,* through the 
common species, Zremella mesenterica. This latter is of a 
fine golden yellow colour, and rather 
large size. It is uniformly composed 
throughout of a colourless mucilage, 
with no appreciable texture, in which 
are distributed very fine, diversely 
branched and anastomosing filaments. 
Towards the surface, the ultimate 
branches of this filamentous network 
give birth, both at their summits and 
laterally, to globular cells, which ac- 
quire a comparatively large size. Fic. 6. —Culocera viscosa. 
These cells are filled with a protoplasm, to which the plant 
owes its orange colour. When they have attained their normal 
dimensions, they elongate at the summit into two, three, or 
four distinct, thick, obtuse tubes, into which the protoplasm 
gradually passes. The development 
of these tubes is unequal and not 
simultaneous, so that one will often 
attain its full dimensions, equal, per- 
haps, to three or four times the dia- 
meter of the generative cell, whilst 
the others are only just appearing. 
By degrees, as each tube attains its 
full size, it is attenuated into a fine 
point, the extremity of which swells 
into a spheroidal cell, which ulti- 
mately becomes a spore. Sometimes these tubes, or spicules, 
send out one or two lateral branches, each terminated by a spore. 
These spores (about 006 to ‘003 mm. diameter) are smooth, and 
deposit themselves, like a fine white dust, on the surface of the 
Tremella and on its matrix. M. Léveillé+ was of opinion that 
Fic. 7.—Tremella mesenterica. 
* Tulasne, L. R. and C., ‘‘ Observations on the Organization of the Tremellini,” 
in ‘* Ann. des Sci. Nat.” 3™° sér. xix. (1853), pp. 193, &e. 
‘ -f M. Léveillé, in ‘‘ Ann. des Sci. Nat.” 2™¢ sér. viii, p. 328; 3™¢ sér, ix. 
p. 127; also Bonorden, ‘‘ Handbuch der Mycologie,” p. 151. 
