GERMINATION AND GROWTH. 139 
they are concealed, and we shall secure acrop.* As to other 
species, we know that hitherto all attempts to solve the mystery 
of germination and cultivation has failed. There are several 
species which it would be most desirable to cultivate if the con- 
ditions could be discovered which are essential to germination.+ 
In the same manner the Boleti and Hydnei—in fact, all other 
hymenomycetal fungi, with the exception of the Zremellini—still 
require to be interrogated by persevering experiment and close 
inquiry as to their mode of germination, but more especially as 
to the essential conditions under which alone a fruitful mycelium 
is produced. / 
The germination of the spore hasbeen | 
observed in some of the Tremellini. 
Tulasne described it in Zremella vio- 
lacea.t These spores are white, unilo- 
cular, and filled with a plastic matter 
of homogeneous appearance. From some 
portion of their surface an elongated 
germ filament is produced, into which 
the contents of the reproductive cell pass 
until quite exhausted. Other spores, 
perhaps more abundant, have a very 
different kind of vegetation. From 
their convex side, more rarely from the 
outer edge, these particular spores emit 
a conical process, generally shorter than 5, 79 _(q) Basidia and spores 
themselves, and directed perpendicularly of Fxidia spiculosa ; (b) Germi- 
to the axis of their figure. This appen- Ps spore. 
dage becomes filled with protoplasm at the expense of the 
* The spores of Agarics which are devoured by flies, however, though returned 
in their dung in an apparently perfect state, are quite effete. It is, we believe, 
principally by the Syrphide, which devour pollen, that fungus spores are con- 
sumed. 
+ Allattempts at Chiswick failed with some of the more esculent species, and 
Mr. Ingram at Belvoir, and the late Mr. Henderson at Milton, were unsuccessful 
with native and imported spawn. 
+ Tulasne, ‘On the Organization of the Tremellini,” ‘‘ Ann. des. Sci. Nat.” 
8™e sér, xix, (1853), p. 193. 
