M. C. Montagne's Sketch of the Class Fungi. 283 



XXXIII. — Organography and Physiologic Sketch of the Class 

 Fungi, by C. Montagne, D.M. Extracted from e Histoire 

 physique, politique et naturelle de File de Cuba/ par M. Ra- 

 mon de la Sagra, and translated and illustrated with 

 short notes by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S. 



[Continued from p. 236.] 



Hymenomycetes, Fr. 

 These Fungi, which compose the highest family of the class, are 

 characterized by an hymenium composed of utricles or exosporous 

 asci*, in contradistinction to that of Discomycetes, in which the asci 

 are endosporous. But the differences are not confined to this single 

 character ; the receptacle itself, on which the hymenium is spread, is 

 not only more varied in its form, but more complicated in its or- 

 ganization. 



I will follow step by step this organization, from the formation of 

 the mycelium or vegetative system to the production of the spores, 

 and in this rapid review will endeavour to omit none of the nu- 

 merous modifications which the different organs undergo in the suc- 

 cessively decreasing series of genera and species. 



The mycelium does not always appear under the same form; it pre- 

 sents flakes of white filaments loosely interwoven, fibres or roots ; or 

 it spreads out in smooth or radiating membranes of the most delicate 

 tissue (e. g. Himantia) ; or finally, it creeps under the bark of trees 

 or amongst the very fibres of the wood forming those black lines or 

 spots which we so frequently observe. Fries remarks that in most 

 cases the mycelium is perennial ; that it is on this account we find 

 it barren, and that it produces fruit only after a given time in each 

 species, and under certain meteorological momenta. These condi- 

 tions are, as everyone knows, heat and moisture. If light is not as 

 necessary for the perfect evolution of the mycelium, since, on the 

 contrary, it is in caves and mines that it acquires a greater degree of 

 development, it is indispensable to that of the fructification which it 

 is destined to produce f. As in plants of a higher order, it is to its 

 overgrowth that the sterility of the fungus is due. These vegetables 

 are not then nocturnal plants, as has been falsely asserted. I have 

 already explained the nature of the filaments which compose the my- 

 celium : as it varies little in outward appearance, still less in its 

 structure at the time of its first appearance, I shall not return to the 

 subject. 



At a certain epoch not easily appreciable, and variable in each 



* The word ascus is scarcely appropriate here. The utricles are in fact 

 the same organs as the stem of Botrytis, as will be seen by comparing Bo- 

 trytis curta, Berk., or any species of the B. parasitica group. — M. J. B. 



t Cantharellus Dutrochettii, Mont. (C. crucibulum, Fr. Ep.), neverthe- 

 less passes through all the phases of its morphosis on bottle-racks made of 

 deal, in the darkness of cellars. [It may however perhaps be doubted 

 whether this and A. pannoides, which is perfected in the same situation, are 

 autonomous species. The remark however will hold good of Merulius la- 

 crymans, &c. — M. J. B.] 



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