CHAPTER III.—SPORES OF FUNGI.—GERMINATION. 115 
it at right angles, as in Nectria Lamyi. In some of these forms, Saccharomyces, 
Exoascus, Nectria Lamyi and its nearest allies, sprouting is the only known 
mode of germination in the spores in which it is found; in others, as Dothidea 
Ribesia, spores of a similar character exhibit some of them sprout-germination, while 
others put out germ-tubes, which may or may not give off sprouts, and this is 
the case also with the ascospores of Bulgaria inquinans, in which the germ-tubes 
which give off sprouts swell into vesicles as they issue from the episporium (Fig. 60). 
In the last-mentioned cases the proper growth of the tubes often ceases with the 
‘formation of sprouts; they resemble therefore the forms described above as pro- 
mycelia, and are connected with typical promycelia by a variety of intermediate forms 
which will be dealt with in Chapter V. 
Finally it must be remarked that the modes of germination here described take 
place, as has been always hitherto assumed, after shedding and discharge of the ripe 
spores; but a number of cases are known among the 
Ascomycetes in which the spores germinate inside the 2 N 
ascus which has just matured, and form simple germ- ¥ ie 
tubes (Sphaeria praecox, Tul., Peziza tuberosa), or © 
form sprouts (Exoascus, Peziza Cylichnium, P. bolaris, 
and especially Nectria). In some species this occurs 
quite exceptionally, as in Peziza tuberosa; in others it 
is very frequent, as in Sphaeria praecox, according to 
Tulasne, in Exoascus and Taphrina; it may even be 
the general rule, as in Nectria inaurata, Lamyi, and 
others. As in the cases last described the products, ink rr ae Fr. Spores 
of germination are numerous sprouts which are abscised 4,2 remyanın oe to be regarded 
and from which in Exoascus new sprouts are at once 
abscised, so in this case the ascus is often densely filled with the sprout-cells, so 
that the original spores formed after the type of the Ascomycetes (section XIX) 
are entirely concealed by them, a state of things which has given rise to all kinds 
of misconceptions. 
Historical review of spore-formation. Organs resembling the seeds of Phanero 
gams and developing into new individuals were up to the times of Tournefort and 
Micheli (1707, 1729) supposed notto exist in Fungi, or were at least but little sought 
for, though it is true that a few places are to be found in older writers, which 
speak of the seeds of Fungi. On this point Ehrenberg, Ep. de Mycetogenesi, and 
Tulasne, Sel. Fung. Carpologia, Prolegomena, Cap. I, V, should especially be consulted. 
The development of the spores was at first examined chiefly in the larger 
mushrooms. Micheli, Nov. plant. genera (1729), saw the spores grouped in tetrads 
on the lamellae of the Agarici (1. c. p. 133, tt. 73, 76), but did not perceive the 
mode of their attachment; but he saw the asci of Tuber plainly and the spores in 
the asci (l.c. p. 221, t. 102). Bulliard (Champ. de France, 1791) recognised the sterig- 
mata (filets) on which the spores of the Hymenomycetes are placed, and O. F. Miiller 
gave an excellent account of the spore-tetrads of Coprinus conatus in the Flora Danica, 
Fasc. xiv. in 1780; Hedwig, Descript. &c. Musc. frond. (1788), discovered the eight- 
spored asci of the Discomycetes, and he and the writers of the succeeding period 
gradually found these organs in the majority of the orders of Ascomycetes; Persoon 


1 Janowitsch, 1. c. 
I 2 
