48 FUNGI. 
the sclerotia is late in the autumn, after the fall of the vine: 
leaves. As long as the frost does not set in, new ones continu- 
ally spring up, and each one attains to ripeness in a few days. 
If frost appears, it can lie dry a whole year, without losing 
its power of development. This latter commences when the 
sclerotium is brought into contact with damp ground during 
the usual temperature of our warmer seasons. If this occur 
soon, at the latest some weeks after itis ripe, new vegetation 
grows very quickly, generally after a few days; in several parts 
the colourless filaments of the inner tissue begin to send out 
clusters of strong branches, which, breaking through the black 
rind, stretch themselves up perpendicularly towards the surface, 
separate from one another, and then take 
| @ all the characteristics of the conidia-bearers, 
@ Ss Many such clusters can be produced on one 
(-\ sclerotium, so that soon the greater part of 
S)|__ the surface is covered by filamentous conidia- 
\y bearers with their panicles. The colourless 
@| tissue of the sclerotium disappears in the 
same degree as the conidia-bearers grow, 
Nl and at last the black rind remains behind 
\ empty and shrivelled. If we bring, after 
i many months, for the first time, the ripe 
i sclerotium, in damp ground, in summer or 
autumn, after it has ripened, the further 
Fic. 29.—Peciza Fuckcana, development takes place more slowly, and 
pero ahd eo pene in an essentially different form. It is true 
ridia. that from the inner tissue numerous fila- 
mentous branches shoot forth at the cost of this growing 
fascicle, and break through the black rind, but its filaments 
remain strongly bound, in an almost parallel situation, to a 
cylindrical cord, which for a time lengthens itself and spreads 
out its free end to a flat plate-like disc. This is always formed 
of strongly united threads, ramifications of the cylindrical cord. 
On the free upper surface of the disc, the filaments shoot forth 
innumerable branches, which, growing to the same height, thick 
and parallel with one another, cover the before-named disc, 
