Sketch of the Class Fungi. 



9 



Bass/ana. My belief was, that the spores, formed in the tube of the 

 principal filaments or branches, issued from their tips, carrying be- 

 fore them the extremity of the thread like a cul-de-sac, which formed 

 their second coat or episporium, and in the end adhered at the point 

 of their passage*. In some genera, instead of being grouped in this 

 manner in more or less fertile heads, the sporidia (moniliformiter con- 

 catenata) form necklaces which crown the digitate, fasciculate, or 

 verticillate branches of the plant (e. g. Penicillium, Aspergillus, &c). 

 In the genus Torula, these same chains or necklaces of sporidia 

 constitute almost all the fungus, and Oidium is formed of filaments 

 which are changed almost completely into spores. 



In Mucorincd this morphosis takes place in quite a different way. 

 It is between the kind of columella with which we have seen most 

 of the species are furnished, and the peridiolum which arises from 

 the dilatation of the tip of the filament, that the sporaceous mass, 

 accumulated at first by the ascent of the juices, passes successively 

 through a multitude of changes, extremely well indicated by Corda 

 (Ic. Fung. ii. p. 19), before arriving at the state of spores, and ac- 

 quiring their perfect maturity f. 



We must not forget that the sporidia of Mucedines are capable of 

 being developed in liquids, and giving rise to confervoid productions 

 which have often been taken for Alga^J. They show the analogy, 

 or, as it were, the link between these productions ; but they are 

 easily distinguished by the absence of all fructification so long as 

 they remain submerged ; it is only when they reach the surface of 

 the liquid that the evolution of the spores can take place. The 

 genus Leptomitus and many others offer examples of these barren 

 mycelia; they are, as regards liquids, what the genera Hypha, 

 Himantia, Byssus, &c, are to places deprived of light. A multitude 

 of species in the work of Biasoletti (Di ale. Alg. Microsc, Trieste, 

 1832) have no better origin. I believe that the same may be said of 

 the transformation of the globules of milk into Penicillium glaucum §. 



* This is perhaps one of the most important questions in the physiology of 

 Fungi. If the learned author himself has not leisure to repeat his observa- 

 tions, which unfortunately I know to be the case, it is greatly to be wished 

 that some competent and unprejudiced naturalist would undertake the task. 

 In Hymenornycetes the spores are gradually produced at the tips of the 

 spicules, and certainly are not developed within the threads ; and this is 

 the case with Botrytis parasitica and its allies. I am not aware that the 

 memoir itself has ever been published. The only account I have seen of 

 it is in ' Comptes Rendus.' — M. J. B. 



t It is necessary to mention that the author is not responsible for the 

 correctness of statements like the present. They are given on the faith of 

 the respective authors, it being impossible to verify every observation. 



+ Schimper imagines that the greater part of freshwater Confervas ori- 

 ginate from an analogous cause, viz. the anormal development of the spo- 

 rules of Mosses ; and that each species of moss corresponds to a species of 

 conferva, &c. See Soc. Hist. Nat. Strasb., 3 December 1833. 



§ Consult on this subject, Fries, Syst. Orb. Veg., p. 42. — Dutrochet sur 

 Porigine des Moisissures, Ann. Sc. Nat., 2 ser. torn. i. p. 30, &c— Berkeley 

 on a conferv. state of Mucor clavatus in Mag. of Zool, and Bot., torn. ii. p. 

 351, and Meyen's remarks on this paper in his Jahresberichte. 



