SfnSie'S'rff] Observations on Mucor Mucedo. 141' 
(peridioles) filled with minute spores, often with a central column 
in the interior." There are several described species of the genus 
Mucorini which is common on decaying fruits, (fee, but it is doubtful 
whether some of these may not be the same plant under varying 
conditions of nutrition and light. In the above perfect plant, as it 
usually first attracts the observer, a number of little globular heads 
seated on erect non-septate filaments, varying in colour from whitish 
grey to grey or brown black, are seen springing from a filamentous 
network fixed by short rootlets in or on the substance on which 
the plant is seated, the colour of the filaments varying from pale 
yellowish to brown. 
If with a fine pair of forceps w^e seize one of the erect filaments 
at the base, and place it on a glass slide, we shall probably find we 
have removed an entire plant of two to five or more stalks springing 
from the same base, terminating above in globose or oval heads, 
and below in several branched rootlets. 
The globular heads very likely are of different growths, and if 
so, applying a little water to the edge of the cover, or some fluid, 
we may see (as at a), supported on a stalk, a slight enlargement in 
the young peridiole with a central portion or column occupying 
all or much of the interior, filled with a finely granular matter or 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXYI. 
a. Commencing peridiole. 
h. More advanced. 
c. Still more advanced, containing hyaline cells. 
d. A nearly ripe head, showing the spores set free by water, hyaline cells in 
the columella, and polygonal cells in the stalk ; a little above the neck 
the attachment of the outer membrane, and at the top its hexagonal 
structure. 
e. Large, somewhat denser cells than the spores, found on some of the ripe 
heads with ordinary spores. 
/. Minute bacteroid bodies, and a few free spores. 
g. Unripe spores. 
h. Empty ripe spore cases, or capsules. 
i. Oblong spores found near the neck. 
j. Torula-like spores. 
k. Minute bodies of /, growing, some very naviculoid in form, others fila- 
mentous, others round, free or attached. 
Ordinary spores germinating, capsules burst but adherent. 
m. Ill-conditicned spore, 
n. Healthy young mycelium. 
0. Ordinary ripe spores with corrugations x 750 diam. 
p. A dense spore, with daughter-cells within of a brown colour, and numerous 
minute globules with dark outline both within and on its surface x 750 
diam. 
q. A cell with numerous nuclei ? = to g. 
r. Bacteroid or schizonematoid bodies from the same stock as /. 
s. Same as k x 750 diam. 
t. Outer spinous membrane of peridiole. 
u. Young head discharging its grumous plasma from the coiit.ict of w;itor 
X 120 diam. ; all the other figures are magnified x 265 diam. 
