Hick : The Sexual Reproduction of Fungi. 87 



<3ially often by bryologists of the middle rank, so to say — by those who 

 have mastered the initial difficulties of the study, and who have acquired 

 sufficient familiarity with moss-physiognomy to know fairly well some 

 90 or 100 common species at sight ; or by those who collect en masse for 

 closet study at leisure, when out moss-trooping for a holiday, in pre- 

 ference to " killing time, and covering no ground at all," by stopping 

 every few yards for careful investigation of what they see in sitii.—\li is 

 intented to issue, with an early number, a plate illustrating Nos. II. and 

 III.— Eds. NM.] 



THE SEXUAL REPRODUCTION OF FUNGI * 



By Thomas Hick, B.A., B. Sc. 



REFERENCES TO PLATE II. 



Fio. I. De-vfelopment of spore, and formation of a plasmodium of Physarum 

 album (after Cienkowski). 



Fig, II. Successive stages (1, 2, 3, 4) of a z^^gospore of Phycomyces nitens^ 

 with, the di(3iotomoiis processes. When the zygospore is mature, 

 the processes are still more branched than is liere represented. 

 (After Van Tieghem and Le Monnier). 



Fig. III. Formation of the oospores of Sajrrolegyiia. Og, is the oogonium : 

 o, the oospores ; a, antheridium. (After Pringsheim). 



FiG. IV. Diagramatic section through young apothecium of Ascoholus furfu- 

 raceus : m, mycelium : c, carpogonium ; 1, pollinodium or anthe- 

 ridium ; s, ascogenous liy[3h8e ; a, asci ; P, i, sterile tissue of the 

 apothecium, whence arise the paraphyses. (After Janczewski.) 



Though the exigencies of the natural system of classification have neces- 

 sitated the dispersion of the plants hitherto known as Fungi among the 

 different classes of thallophytes, it is well-nigh certain that for a long 

 time to come the term will continue to be used, if not as the name of a 

 group morphologically distinct, at least as a very convenient designation 

 for those thallophytes whose function of nutrition presents special pecu- 

 liarities. Chief among these peculiarities is the fact that in these plants 

 the power of decomposing water, carbonic acid and ammonia, as such, 

 and initialing new combinations of the elements of these, so as to pro- 

 duce compounds of a higher degree of complexity, is entirely wanting, 

 due to the absence of that green colouring matter called chlorophyll which 

 is so characteristic of all other plants, with a few exceptions, from the 

 simplest and smallest protophytes to the most highly ornamented 

 phanerogams. That such an important physiological distinction, which 

 is practically a suppression of the functions of assimilation altogether, 

 should avail little for the purposes of classification, will not seem strange 



* Read before the Leeds Natui-alists' Club and Scientific Association, Sep 17, 1878. 



