PARASITIC AND SAPROPHYTIC PLANTS. 



47 



" Their rapid increase in the juices of the cell would give rise to the 

 vacuolation of the protoplasm (the plasmodium of some observers). At 

 this time also vigorous specimens have these cells abundantly supplied 

 with starch at the period when the increase in size of the cell and coinci- 

 dent multiplication of the gemmules occur." (Precisely as in a germinat- 

 ing seedling of Neottia Nidus-avis, starch appears abundantly just where 

 the endophyte is most active.*) " This causes the cells to grow (hyper- 

 trophy), and by the time the hypertrophy has ceased the gemmules in 

 that particular cell have ceased to multiply. 



" The tubercle now passes into a state of rest ; it is a mass of cells 

 full of yeast cells, gemmules, germs — so tiny that they might well be, as 

 they were, mistaken for bacteria. The rotting of the tubercle liberates 

 these into the soil . . . and an extended acquaintance with these ' germs ' 

 and their numbers leads one to feel no surprise if they turn out to be the 

 ubiquitous germs which it has been suggested must exist to account for 

 the universality of the root tubercles." 



Prof. Ward regarded the fungus as a member of the Ustilaginecs. 



Miss M. Dawson, who has re-examined the nodules (1900), shows how 

 the bacterioids grow and multiply, forming X, Y, and V shaped bodies by 

 budding, but considers it impossible now to classify them with the Ustila- 

 ginecB, but says, "It must be confessed that it is impossible as yet to 

 assign them to any other group if not to the Schizomycetes.'" 



* Etudes sur la Taberisation," par M. N. Bernard, Eev. Gin. de Bot. xiv. pi. ii. 

 fig. 11. 



