332 DIVISION II.—COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 
sides of hyphal branches, and are divided transversely into shorter rods before or 
after abscision (Fig. 161). These small rods are very abundantly and frequently pro- 
duced in some species, as for instance in Coprinus lagopus, but not in all the individuals 
which form basidia. In other species, as C. ephemeroides, they are few and rare; in 
C. stercorarius, as may be gathered from what has been said above, they do not 
occur at all. In Brefeld’s careful cultivations the rods always perished without ger- 
minating, in C. lagopus sometimes after a doubtful commencement of germination ; 
Van Tieghem’s statement with regard to their power of germination must therefore be 
accepted with caution. From the facts in our possession we must speak of them as 
gonidia the germination of which has not been observed. 
A formation of gonidia of a certain kind has also been observed in the 
Nidularieae, where young mycelial hyphae, if imperfectly fed, break up by transverse 
divisions into cylindrical cells, which ger- 
minate under favourable conditions and 
develope new normal mycelia with peridia. 
It appears therefore that in the best- 
known species a formation of ‘gonidia’ 
may be introduced into the section of the 
development between two successive gener- 
ations of basidiospore-generations, in most 
cases as a facultative occurrence depending 
on external causes, in others perhaps as a 
necessary or at any rate a very regular 
process. More thorough investigation is 
necessary on this point especially in the 
Tremellineae; in the Nidularieae the acci- 
FIG, x61. Coprinus lagopus, Fr. Mycelial hypha m with dental nature of the occurrence and its de- 
a branch @ from which rods are being abjointed. 5 rods 


or gonidia detached, some still d together in rows, i 
cthesame isolated. After Brefeld, from Liirssen’s Handbook, pendence on external and occasional causes 
a and & magn. 400, ¢ 600 times, is evident. 
Finally, the observations on Sphaero- 
bolus, to which we must now revert, show when compared with the foregoing that 
the gonidia described above as gemmae in this Fungus have a prominent position in 
the development, since the task of propagation devolves almost exclusively on them ; 
at least the basidiospores are much behind them in this respect and in the natural 
course of things need scarcely germinate at all. 
For some time the course of the development in the Basidiomycetes was supposed to 
be quite different from that which has now been described, and efforts were made 
to show that it was different; it was thought that the compound sporophore, like 
the sporocarp of the Ascomycetes, was developed from a fertilised archicarp, which 
became surrounded in various ways, as in the Ascomycetes, with an envelope of hyphae. 
Karsten’ has thrown out some doubtful hints in this direction since 1860, in connection 
with Agaricus campestris. More decided suggestions of the kind arose from the 
discovery of the development of the sporocarps of Erysiphe, and these were probably 
the occasion of the paper of A. S. Oersted?, which described ‘oospheres’ formed 

i Geschlechtsleben d. Pflanz. p- 50, and Bonplandia, 1862, p. 63. 
? Verhandl. d. k. Dan. Ges. d. Wiss. 1 Jan. 1865. 
