8 M. C. Montagnc's Organography and Physiologic 



and their branches; they are usually termed fibres (fibra). We 

 still observe in them reproduction by division ; that is to hay, in 

 Cladosporium, for example, the septate extremity of the principal 

 filament or branch is changed into sporidia which separate from it 

 and fall successively. 



The sporidia are simple or compound. The first are formed of a 

 single hyaline membrane (episporium), sometimes marked with a 

 hilum, and always containing a sporaceous, variously coloured mass, 

 which is termed nucleus. They enclose also, though more rarely, 

 granules which have been considered as sporidiola*. Though fre- 

 quently isolated, they are sometimes heaped about the tips or sides 

 of the filaments which support them. At other times, they form, as 

 it were, necklaces whose grains are cither contiguous, or separated 

 by a connecting band (desmos) interposed between each of them. 

 The compound sporidia are observed only in Demutia, where, ac- 

 cording to Corda, they present the same structure as that which I 

 described after him in the spores of Puccinia. As to general form, 

 they are spherical, ovoid, oblong, elliptic, reni-,pyri-, or clavi-form. 

 They are smooth, angular, scabrous, wrinkled, papillary, rough, 

 with hairs or prickles. Their colour is extremely variable, with the 

 exception of deep green and bluef- 



In the greater number of the species of this family, the sporidia 

 originate clearly from the granular sporaceous mass, suspended in a 

 viscid or watery fluid which circulates in the tubes of the continuous 

 filaments. Fries has seen an ascending current in the fluid of Asco- 

 phora Mucedo. I have confirmed the fact in my experiments on 

 Muscardine, without being able to decide whether this motion be 

 vital or molecular. But at the same epoch I have certainly seen in 

 Botrytis Bassiana the sporidia, or globular cells which did not seem 

 to differ from them, rise incessantly in the tube, from the base to 

 the summit of the filament, at the time when the reproductive bodies 

 are formed, that is to say, the second day from the evolution of the 

 tlocci on the outside of the body of the silk-worm. But whatever 

 be the mode of formation of the sporidia in this family, their mor- 

 phosis or evolution is not the same in both the sections. In the one 

 they issue, or appear to issue, from the extremity of the filament, 

 and are grouped after a peculiar manner predestined for each genus 

 and species. In the Sporotrichacece they are free and dispersed 

 among the filaments ; in Isarice they are acrogenous, or adnate on the 

 summit of a branch ; in Botrytidea united usually in spherical heads 

 of greater or less size, around the tip of the principal thread or its 

 branches. This grouping takes place successively, as I have con- 

 vinced myself in tracing from hour to hour the evolution of Botrytis 



* It is probable that they are not, properly speaking, sporidiola, at least 

 if we may judge by what takes place in the germination of compound spo- 

 ridia of the fourth family, where a shoot is given off opposite to each globule. 

 See Mont., Ann. Sc. Xat, t. xiv. pl.19.fig. 6 i; and Berk., Ann. of Nat. Hist., 

 vol. vi. tab. xi. fig. 8 b. — M. J. B. 



f The nearest approach is in Phycomyces nitens and the Brazilian Mu- 

 cor virens and cyanocephalus. — M. J. B. 



