SIMPLER FORMS OF FUNGI — YBA8T-PLANT. 335 



mentable fluid containing some form of albuminous matter in 

 addition to sugar, in the manner represented in Pig. 118. Each 



o Co ^ 



Tm~ula Cereoisia, or Yeast-Plant, as developed during the process of fermentaiion : — a,b,c,d, suc- 

 cessive stages of Cell-multiplication. 



cell puts forth one or two projections, which seem to be young 

 cells developed as buds or oflsets from their predecessors ; these, 

 in the course of a short time, become complete cells, and again per- 

 form the same process ; and in this manner the single cells of yeast 

 develope themselves, in the course of a few hours, into rows of 

 four, five, or six, which remain in continuity with each other 

 whilst the plant is still growing, but which separate if the fer- 

 menting process be checked, and return to the isolated condition 

 of those which originally constituted the yeast. Thus it is, that 

 the quantity of yeast first introduced into the fermentable fluid, 

 is multiplied six times or more, during the changes in which it 

 takes part. The full development of the Plant, however, and 

 the evolution of its apparatus of fructification, only occur, when 

 the fermenting process is allowed to go on without check ; and 

 it seems capable of producing a considerable variety of forms, 

 whose precise relationship to each other has not yet been made 

 clear. In fact, with regard to the Fungi generally, it has been 

 made apparent by recent observations, that difierent individuals 

 of the very same species may not only develope themselves ac- 

 cording to a great number of very dissimilar modes of growth, 

 but that they may even bear very dissimilar types of fructification ; 

 and further, that even the same individual may put forth, at dif- 

 ferent periods of its life, those two kinds of fructification, — the 

 basidio-sporous, in which the spores are developed by out-growth 

 from free points [hasidia), and the theca-sporous, in which they are 

 developed in the interior of cases (thecce or asci, Fig. 125), — which 

 had been previously considered as separately characterizing the 

 two principal groups, into which the class is primarily divided. 



209. Many of the simpler forms of Fungi are inhabitants of 

 the interior of the bodies of other animals, and are only known 

 as living in these situations. Among these may first be men- 

 tioned the Sarcina ventriouli (Fig. 119), which is most frequently 

 found in the matters vomited by persons suffering under disorder 

 of the stomach, but has also been met with in other diseased 

 parts of the body. The plant has been detected in the con- 

 tents of the stomach, however, under circumstances which 

 seem to indicate that it is not an uncommon tenant of that 

 organ even in health, and that it may accumulate there to a 



