32 



FUNGI. 



of which, they are then composed bears considerable resemblance 

 to sarcode, and, did they never change from this, there might be 

 some excuse for doubting as to their vegetable nature ; but as the 

 species proceed towards maturity they lose their mucilaginous 

 texture, and become a mass of spores, intermixed with threads, 

 surrounded by a cellular peridium. Take, for instance, the genus 

 Trichia, and we have in the matured specimens a somewhat 

 globose peridium, not larger than a mustard seed, and some- 

 times nearly of the same colour ; this ultimately ruptures and 

 exposes a mass of minute yellow spherical spores, intermixed 

 with threads of the same colour.* These threads, when highly 

 magnified, exhibit in themselves a spiral arrangement, which 

 has been the basis of some controversy, and in some species 

 these threads are externally spimilose. The chief controversy 



Fig. 10.— a. Threads of Trichia. 6. Portion further magnified, with spores, c. Por- 

 tion of spinulose thread. 



on these threads has been whether the spiral markings are 

 external or internal, whether caused by twisting of the thread 

 or by the presence of an external or internal fibre. The spiral 

 appearance has never been called in question, only the structure 

 from whence it arises, and this, like the strife of diatoms, is 

 very much an open question. Mr. Currey held that the spiral 



" Wigand, " Morphologie cles Genres Trichia et Arcyria," in "Ann. des Sci. 

 Nat." 4 ln "ser. xvi. p. 223. 



