OF CEETAIN SPILEEIACEOTJS FUNGI. 
enable the observer to detect the other; and although the mere fact of their growing 
together would hardly afford any ground for suspecting a relationship between the 
two, it is a circumstance which, taken in connexion with others, must be allowed to 
be of considerable weight. But besides their companionship, there is a very strong 
external resemblance between the Sphseria and the Prosthemium, so much so that it is 
frequently impossible, without a microscopical examination of the fruit, to decide whether 
a particular specimen belongs to the one or the other. The perithecia of the Pros- 
themium are large and depressed, with a central ostiolum, and, although not invariably, 
are sometimes clothed with the dense wool which is one of the characteristics of the 
Sphseria. There is, no doubt, a total dissimilarity at first sight between the eight- 
spored ascus of the Spheeria and the fascicle of spores of the Prosthemium ; but there is 
no great difference, on the contrary, there is not unfrequently a strong resemblance, 
between the indi\iduals constituting the fascicle and the free sporidia of the Sphaeria 
after the latter have lost them gelatinous coat, which takes place soon after their escape 
from the ascus. Upon tracing the asci and the fascicles from their earliest stages, it 
will be found that they originate in precisely the same manner, viz. in the form of a 
clavate cell proceeding from the wall of the perithecium. This shape is retained 
throughout its existence in the case of the ascus ; but in the fascicle, very shortly after 
the endochrome has begun to form distinct masses, ^. e. shortly after the state shown 
in fig. 30, «, a bulging-out of the membrane takes place as shown in fig. 30, c, and 
the contents of the cell become distributed between the branch-cell and the original 
one (see fig. 30, d. The contents of the branch-cell become separated into distinct 
masses, precisely as in the primary cell, septa or pseudo-septa are formed at the point 
of bifurcation as well as in the body of the cell, and after the formation of a similar 
branch-cell on the other side of the original cell the fascicles eventually assume the 
form shown in fig. 30, e and jf, and in fig. 31. 
The small processes which project from the central cell with the principal spores I 
take to be only abortive spores, ^. e. bodies originating in the same manner as the spores 
themselves, and failing to become perfect from a deficiency in quantity or ^^tality of the 
formative matter in the interior of the primary cell. 
Figs. 29 and 30 are magnified 220, and fig. 31, 315 diameters. 
