GERMINATION AND GROWTH. 141 
reproductive body, and most often on its convex side. Their 
fecundity is exhausted with the plastic contents of the spore. 
The corpuscles, when placed in the most favourable conditions, 
have never given the least sign of vegetation; they have also 
remained for a long time in water without experiencing any 
appreciable alteration. 
All the individuals of Dacrymyces deliquescens do not produce 
these corpuscles in the same abundance; those which bear the 
most are recognizable by the pale tint of the reproductive dust 
with which they are covered; in others, where this dust prescrves 
its golden appearance, only a few corpuscles are found. The 
spores which produce corpuscles do not appear at all apt to 
germinate. On the other hand, multitudes of spores will germi- 
nate which had not produced any corpuscles. Tulasne remarks 
on this, that these observations would authorize us to think that 
all spores, though perfectly identical to our eyes, have not, 
without distinction, the same fate, nor doubtless the same nature ; 
and, in the second place, that these two kinds of bodies, if they 
are not always isolated, yet are most frequently met with on 
distinct individuals. This author claims for the corpuscles in 
question that they are spermatia, and thinks that their origin is 
only so far unusual in that they procced from veritable spores. 
The whole of the Gasteromycetes have as yet to be challenged 
as to the mode and conditions of germination and development. 
It is probable that these will not materially differ from those 
which prevail in Hymenomycetes. 
The germination in cidium has been followed out by Tulasne,* 
either by placing the pseudospores in a drop of water, or confining 
them in a moist atmosphere, or by placing the leaves on which 
the 4icidium flourishes upon water. The pseudospores plunged 
in water germinated more readily than the others. If the con- 
ditions were favourable, germination would take place in a few 
hours. Aicidium Ranunculacearum, D. C., on leaves of figwort, 
gives rarely more than one germinating filament, which soon 
attains three times the length of the diameter of the pseudospore. 
This filament generally remains simple, sometimes torulose, and 
* Tulasne, ‘‘ Mémoire sur les Urédinécs.” 
