GERMINATION AND GROWTH. 



161 



proof of the existence of two special membranes, and so suppose 

 that the germinative cell is the continuation of the internal 

 membrane, the external membrane alone being susceptible of 

 absorbing the liquids, at least with a certain rapidity." 



In other Discomycetes germination takes place in a similar 

 manner. Boudier* narrates that in Ascobolus, -when once the 

 spore reaches a favourable place, if the circumstances are good, 

 i.e., if the temperature is sufficiently high and the moisture 

 sufficient, it will germinate. The time necessary for this pur- 

 pose is variable, some hours sufficing for some 

 species ; those of A. viridis, for example, germi- 

 nate in eight or ten hours, doubtless because, 

 being terrestrial, it has in consequence less heat. 

 The spore slightly augments in size, then opens, 

 generally at one or other extremity, sometimes at 

 two, or at any point on its surface, in order to 

 pass the mycelium tubes. At first simple, with- 

 out septa, and granular in the interior, above 

 all at the extremity, these tubes, the rudiment of 

 the mycelium, are not long in elongating, in 

 branching, and later in having partitions. These 

 filaments are always colourless, only the spore 

 may be coloured, or not. Coemans has described 

 them as giving rise to two kinds of conidia,f the Fio. 94. — Spori- 

 one having the form of Torula, when they give dium . °\. A '"""' tu ' 



o i ^ J o germinating. 



rise to continuous filaments, the other in the form 

 of Penicillium, when they give birth to partitioned filaments. 

 De Seynes could never obtain this result. Many times he had seen 

 the Penicillium glaucum invade his sowings, but he feels confident 

 that it had nothing to do with the Ascobolus. M. WoroninJ 

 has detailed some observations on the sexual phenomena which 

 he has observed in Ascobolus and Peziza, and so far as the scole- 

 cite is concerned these have been confirmed by M. Boudier. 



* Boudier, " M^moire sur 1' Ascoboles, " pt. i. iv. f, 13-15. 

 f Coemans, " Spicilege Mycologique," i. p. 6. 



X Woronin, " Abhandlungen der Senchenbergischen Naturfor. Gesellschaft'' 

 (1865), p. 383. 



