126 



FUNGI. 



spores are stellate, whilst in Pestalozzia they are septate, with a 

 permanent peduncle, and crested above with two or three hyaline 

 appendages. " 



The Torulacei externally, and to the naked eye, are very 

 similar to the black moulds, and the mode of dissemination will 

 be alike in both. The spores are chiefly compound, at first 

 resembling septate threads, and at length breaking up into 



Fig. 56. — Spores of Pestalozzia. 



Fig. 57. — Bispora monilioidee. 



joints, each joint of which possesses the function of a spore. In 

 some instances the threads are connate, side by side, as in Torula 

 hysterioides, and in Speira, being concentrically arranged in 

 laminae in the latter genus. The structure in SporocMsma is 

 very peculiar, the joints breaking up within an external tube or 

 membrane. The spores in Sporidesmium appear to consist of 

 irregular masses of cells, agglomerated into a kind of compound 

 spore. Most of the species become pulverulent, and the spores 

 are easily diffused through the air like an impalpable dust. 

 They form a sort of link between the stylospores of one section 

 of the Coniomycetes, and the pseudospores of the parasitical 

 section. 



Pseudospore is, perhaps, the most fitting name which can be 

 applied to the so-called spores of the parasitical Coniomycetes. 

 Their peculiar germination, and the production of reproductive 

 bodies on the germ tubes, prove their analogy to some extent 

 with the prothallus of other cryptogams, and necessitate the 

 use of some term to distinguish them from such spores as are 

 reproductive without the intervention of a promycelium. The 



