VII. 
GERMINATION AND GROWTIL 
In describing the structure of these organisms in a previous 
chapter, the modes of germination and growth from the spores 
have been purposely excluded and reserved for the present. It 
may be assumed that the reader, having followed us to this 
poiut, is prepared for our observations by some knowledge of 
the chief features of structure in the principal groups, and of the 
main distinctions in the classification, or at least sufficient to 
obviate any repetition here. In very many species it is by no 
means difficult to induce germination of the spores, whilst in 
others success is by no means certain, 
M. de Seynes made the Hymenomycetes an especial object of 
study,* but he can give us no information on the germination 
and growth of the spore. Hitherto almost nothing is positively 
known. As to the form of the spore, it is always at first 
spherical, which it retains for a long time, while attached to 
the basidia, and in some species, but rarely, this form is final, as 
in Aq. terreus, &c. The most usual form is either ovoid or regu- 
larly elliptic. All the Coprini have the spores oval, ovoid, more 
or less elongated or attenuated from the hilum, which is more 
translucent than the rest of the spore. This last form is rather 
general amongst the Leucospores, in Amanita, Lepiota, &c. At 
other times the sporcs are fusiform, with regularly attenuated 
entremitics, as in dg. ermineus, Fr., or with obtuse cxtremities, as 
* Seynes, J. de, ‘‘ Essai d’une Flore Mycolozique de 1a Montpellier,” &c. 
(1863), p. 30. 
