336 DIVISION II.—COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 
radiating hyphae, which forms the whole of the upper side of the pileus, produces 
at an early stage and from all parts numerous stellate spores or macrogonidia of a 
yellowish brown colour, which I named chlamydospores ; when fully developed it 
is a yellowish brown layer, which may be 1 mm. in thickness and ultimately 
decays (Fig. 162). Lamellae are formed on the under surface of large pilei, and on 
them basidia which produce four spores, and are usually few in number. The tissue 
of the under side of the pileus, which bears the lamellae when fully developed, is 
distinctly different from that of the layer of chlamydospores both in the shape and 
size of its cells. In young specimens, on the other hand, the Fungus consists entirely 
of similar hyphae, and there is an uninterrupted connection between the hyphae of 
the under side of the pileus and those of the chlamydospore-layer, the latter appearing 
as branches from the former. In some cases no basidia or lamellae are formed. 
Tulasne states that a third kind of spore is found in the layers of macrogonidia, namely, 
small colourless cylindrical cells or microgonidia which are abjointed in long rows. 
A second species, Nyctalis parasitica, Fr., which like N. asterophora grows on the 
larger Agarici, especially Russula adusta, Fr., forms narrowly ellipsoid smooth macro- 
gonidia in the interior of the whole of the tissue of the thick swollen lamellae, the 
other parts of the pileus remaining free from them. Tulasne not unfrequently found 
typical four-spored basidia isolated in the same lamellae as the chlamydogonidia, 
but I never saw any in my specimens. The view that the gonidia are organs of 
Nyctalis is founded with regard to both species on the fact, that the hyphae from 
which they are produced are evidently branches from the rest of the tissue, as seems 
to have been ascertained beyond doubt in younger specimens. 
Tulasne! has declared against this view. Like Corda, Bonorden, and other writers 
before him ? he holds that the chlamydospores (with the microgonidia of N. asterophora) 
are organs of two Fungi which are parasitic on Agaricus parasiticus, a distinct species 
which itself lives upon Russula and other forms, and produces more or less degenera- 
tion in them, and he places these parasites in Hypomyces, a genus of the Sphaeriaceae 
which lives on other Fungi, under the names of H. asterophorus and H. Baryanus. 
The grounds of his judgment are the resemblance between these organs and those 
of the same name in other species of Hypomyces which are known to be parasitic 
on the Agaricineae, the fact, which I can vouch for, that the chlamydospores sometimes 
arise isolated on the mycelium of Nyctalis which grows in or on Russula, and lastly 
the occurrence of indubitable perithecia in company with the gonidia on Nyctalis 
asterophora. He has not detected any defect in the investigation of the anatomy 
and life-history of the plant, on which I founded my opinion. 
Tulasne’s view is so very probable, that I have taken much pains to find out where 
my mistake is, but repeated examinations have hitherto always produced the same 
result. If we simply adhere therefore to the facts before us, we must abide by my 
first view, especially since Agaricus parasiticus has never been found, as far as I know, 
without a chlamydospore-apparatus, except perhaps where ät is replaced by Nyctalis 
microphylla of Corda®. The structure also of the sporophore of N. parasitica is so 
very different from that of N. asterophora, that the conjecture that the two forms 
of Nyctalis are the same Agaricus parasiticus which has been differently altered 
by different parasites, seems to me much more rash than my own opinion as expressed 
above. Moreover an experiment of Krombholz by artificial cultivation of the plant 
seems to afford support to my explanation. Krombholz * sowed the stellate spores of 
N. asterophora on a young Russula adusta, and as he states with all due precautions, 

' Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 4, XIII, p. 5, and Sel. Fung. Carpol. III, 54, 59. 
? See Bot. Ztg. 1859, p. 385. 
® Icon. IV, Fig. 134. 
* Essbare Schwämme, Heft I, p. 3. 
