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XXYI. On the Fructification of certain Sphceriaceous Fungi. 
By Feedeeick Cueeet, M.A., F.L.8. Communicated by W. J. Hookee, M.B.., F.R.S. 
Received May 14, — Read June 18, 1857. 
The inquiiies which have been carried on of late years with regard to the reproductive 
organs of Fungi, although they have caused but little progress towards the solution of 
the problem of sexuality, have nevertheless been by no means barren or unproductive. 
They have revealed the existence of a diversity in those organs, not only amongst genera 
and species, but in the same indmdual plant, to an extent which would excite surprise, 
if not incredulity, in the mind of an observer unacquainted with the subject or approach- 
ing it for the first time. 
It has been proved, that in a vast number of cases the same Fungus, or to speak more 
correctly, the same mycehum or vegetative system, has the power of producing fruits 
ditfering so much in form and appearance, that it would never occur to a casual observer 
to suppose that they were the produce of the same plant. Many Fungi placed by former 
observers in different genera and even in ditferent families, are now ascertained to be 
different forms of fi’uit of one and the same plant. 
\Yithout going into details, one striking instance may be mentioned. Dr. De Baey 
has shown that the common cheese-mould, Aspergillus glaucus, and Eurotium herhari- 
07'um, an ascigerous fungus too well known to botanists as the pest of herbaria, are two 
forms of fruit produced from the same mycelium, and numbers of other instances of a 
similar nature have also been published. 
This polymorphism of fructification, which is of the greatest interest in a physiologi- 
cal point of \iew, is of hardly less importance when considered with reference to the 
effect which it must produce upon the systematic arrangement of Fungi. Its obvious 
effect (if it should be proved to exist as extensively as there seems reason to suspect) 
must be the striking out of a number of ill-founded genera, thus affording relief to the 
overloaded terminology of the science of Mycology. 
In the present state of the question accumulation of observations is the great deside- 
ratum, the means by which it may hereafter be possible to arrive as it were by a 
process of induction, at more general conclusions than have hitherto been reached. 
In the present paper my object is to lay before the Society the result of some obser- 
vations upon certain Fungi of the division Sphseriacei, a division which seems likely to 
be productive of a greater number of instances of the diversity of fructification above 
alluded to than any other tribe. The observations in question have been conducted 
certainly with care, and I believe with accuracy, and I venture to hope that they may 
not be considered without importance in their bearing upon the general subject. 
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