138 FUNGI. 
in 4g. rutilans, Sch. In Hygrophorus they are rather irregular, 
reniform, or compressed in the centre all round. Hoffmann* has 
given a figure taken from 4g. chlorophanus, and Seynes verified 
it upon 4g. ceraceus, Sow. (See figures on page 121.) 
The exospore is sometimes roughened, with more or less pro- 
jecting warts, as may be seen in Russula, which much resembles 
Lactarius in this as in some other particulars. The spores of 
the Dermini and the Hyporhodii often differ much from the 
spherical form. In 4g. pluteus, Fr., and Ag. phaiocephalus, Bull, 
there is already a commencement of the polygonal form, but the 
angles are much rounded. It is in Ag. sericeus, Ag. rubellus, 
&c., that the polygonal form becomes most distinct. In Dermini 
the angles are more or less pronounced, and become rather acute 
in Ag. murinus, Sow., and Ag. ramosus, Bull. The passage from 
one to the other may be scen in the stellate form of the conidia 
of Wyctalis. 
It is almost always the external membrane that is coloured, 
which is subject to as much variation as the form. The more 
fine and more delicate shades are of rose, yellow-dun or yel- 
low, violet, ashy-grey, clear fawn colour, yellow-orange, olive- 
green, brick-red, cinnamon-brown, reddish-brown, up to sepia- 
black and other combinations. It is only by the microscope 
and transparency that one can make sure of these tints; upon 
a sufficient quantity of agglomerated spores the colour may be 
distinguished by the naked eye. Colour, which has only a slight 
importance when considered in connection with other organs, 
acquires much in the spores, as a basis of classification. 
With the growth of Agarics from the mycelium, or spawn, we 
are not deficient in information, but what are the conditions 
necessary to cause the spores themselves to germinate before our 
eyes and produce this mycelium is but too obscure. In the culti- 
vated species we proceed on the assumption that the spores have 
passed a period of probation in the intestines of the horse, and 
by this process have acquired a germinating power, so that when 
expelled we have only to collect them, and the excrement in which 
* Hoffman, ‘‘ Icones Analytice Fungorum.” 
