118 
CASH AND HICK: ON FOSSIL FUNGI. 
existed. These appearances are represented in Fig. 2 (a), the 
meaning of which is suggested by a comparison with existing 
fungoid filaments, in which transverse partitions are normally- 
present. In such filaments the application of a gentle heat, 
the abstraction of moisture, or any other influence which 
arrests the vital activity of the cells without destroying their 
organic structure, causes the protoplasm to shrink from the 
walls and take up a central position. In many instances the 
shrinking at the ends of the cells takes place at all points of 
the surface, and the contraction of the protoplasm is com- 
plete. But in others an intermediate stage can sometimes be 
recognised, in which the protoplasm remains attached along 
the margin of the end septa, while it contracts at the centre. 
In this way, the same phenomenon occurring on both sides, 
the septum comes to lie across a biconvex cavity, hollowed out 
in the protoplasm of the two cells. The appearances pre- 
sented under these conditions are not dissimilar to those of 
some of the fossil hyphae, save that in these last the cellulose 
partitions, so far as we can make out, have altogether dis- 
appeared. Vide Plate vi., Fig. 2 (a). 
Reproductive Organs. — The reproductive organs are un- 
fortunately neither abundant nor well defined. After a most 
careful examination of the preparation with the highest 
microscopic power that it will bear, we have found but few 
structures to which a reproductive function can be assigned 
with any degree of confidence. These are all of one type, 
and consist of small spherical bodies, the most perfect of 
which are shown in Fig. 1 (6) and Fig. 2 (6). They appear 
to have been produced at the extremities of the hyphse, or of 
short branches thereof, though the one represented in 
Fig. 2 (b) is the only instance in which such a connection is 
actually observable. The bodies drawn are not of the same 
size, that of Fig. 1 being about T - 6 T 0 0 inch in diameter, and 
that of Fig. 2 -nVo m ch. 
