DIVISION III. MODE OF LIFE OF THE FUNGI. 
CHAPTER VI. PHENOMENA OF GERMINATION. 
l. CAPACITY OF GERMINATION AND POWER OF 
RESISTANCE IN SPORES. 
Section XCV. The greater number of known spores in the Fungi, the word 
spore being taken in the meaning assigned to it on page 128, are capable of 
germination from ‘he moment that they are ripe. In a smaller number of known 
forms this is not the case; the spores do not germinate till after they have passed 
through a perrod of rest which follows upon their maturity. 
Examples of the first kind, that is, of spores which germinate immediately 
after maturity, are all ascospores, most spores of the Hymenomycetes, the majority 
of the forms known as gonidia, the oospores of some Saprolegnieae, as Achlya 
spinosa, A. apiculata, and Aplanes (section XL). 
Some spores are capable of germinating even before maturity, that is, before 
they have reached the condition which according to empirical rules indicates 
maturity (see page 59). The gonidia of the Saprolegnieae, for example, may omit 
their regular swarm-cell period in cultivated specimens and germinate beneath the 
cover-glass!; the. ascospores of Sordaria fimiseda in Woronin’s? experiments 
showed themselves capable of germination long before the completion of their 
definitive membrane and their discharge from the ascus, and similar cases are not 
unfrequent among the Ascomycetes. 
The period of time during which spores of this category retain the power of 
germination, where the conditions are unfavourable to germination and the spores 
are not subjected to any serious injury, varies in different species and individuals and 
according to the form of the spore. It is short in the comparatively watery and 
turgescent gonidia of the Peronosporeae, and in the uredospores, aecidiospores, and 
sporidia of the Uredineae, lasting where the spores are not quite dried up for a few 
weeks, seldom for a few months, and coming to an end, as far as we know at 
present, with the summer in which the spores were matured. Gonidia, for example, of 
Cystopus candidus which were not perfectly air-dry continued capable of germination 
6-8 weeks, those of Phytophthora infestans for 3 weeks, perfectly air-dry gonidia 
of the latter species (caught on glass-plates) lost their power of development in 24 hours. 
Similar results were obtained in the case of the spores of the Uredineae mentioned 
above. The ripe swarm-spores of the Saprolegnieae and Peronosporeae remain capable 

1 Thuret in Ann. sc. nat. sér. 3, XIV, t. 22. 
? Cited on page 262. 
