
THE SMALLER FUNGI. 569 
and several novel. and interesting points for consideration 
and even for enquiry arise. If we should place some of the 
yellow dust, which fills the cup-shaped peridia in a drop of 
water, and prevent its evaporation by covering it with a bell- 
glass, a tumbler or wine-glass would do as well, wè should 
find,in a few hours, that each particle of the dust had swollen, 
and bursting at some point, had given out a blunt thread, at 
the apex of which, it is crowned with delicate curved append- 
ages, which soon become connected by lateral threads, thus 
forming a kind of latticed net-work, and from the sides’ of 
these filaments little oblong cells sprout, which in turn ger- 
~ Minate and reproduce the plant. For this highly interesting 
_. discovery we are indebted to the Rev. M. J. Berkeley of 
= England, and a particular and extended account of which 
_ may be found in the London Journal of Horticulture, vol. 
= 2, p.107. . Those of our readers, who are familiar with the 
early stages of the ferns can trace a striking analogy in the 
process, 
In many of the smaller fungi, the first condition of the 
germinating spore, viz.: the cluster of curved and delicate 
appendages surmounting a thread, is present in another 
form, and constitutes what is termed the Spermogone,* often 
in the shape of a minute dot near the peridium and some- 
times on the opposite surface of the leaf, and in fact a 
Conceptacle or blister filled with threads, and throwing off 
from the apices the curved bodies, called spermatia, which 
escaped through an orifice provided for the purpose. Before 
the nature and office of these singular objects were known, 
‘permogones were mistaken for distinct kinds of fungi, and 
many diverse species were described. They are, however, 
hot wholly confined to the fungi, but even the lichens are fur- 
with similar ones. The size of the largest spermatia, 
E Sie of the Peridermium pini, “have a length equal to s250 
Fu inch, but their width seldom exceed rooyos Of an inch, 
Pema 7 -a ing Spermatia or ger- 
inating laments, 5 i 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. II. 72 


