CRYPTOGAMS. 
257 
of fixed oils. They depend for their sustenance on either 
living organisms, when they are known as parasites ; or 
on dead organisms, when they are known as sapro- 
phytes. Fungi are characterized by the production of 
long, cylindrical, thread-like, more or less branching 
cells which together constitute the vegetative part of 
the plant, this being known as the mycelium or 
hypha; in some of the lower orders the mycelia have 
no transverse walls and are, therefore, unicellular; in 
other fungi the mycelia become more or less united 
and interwoven forming felt-like masses ; in still other 
cases the mycelia produce in addition numerous trans- 
verse walls forming a kind of parenchymatous tissue, 
to which the name “ pseudo-parenchyma ” has been 
applied, as in the tube-like mycelium or “sclerotium” 
of ergot. 
In the majority of the fungi reproduction is asexual, 
two distinct modes being recognized: one in which the 
spores arise in a mother-cell or sporangium, as in the 
common mold Mucor ; and another in which the 
spores arise directly from the mycelium or on special 
hyphse, as in Penicillium. 
The fungi include the mildews and blights which 
attack the foliage and other parts of flowering plants ; 
the water-molds which attack various aquatic animals; 
mushrooms and pufl'-balls; the smuts and yeasts, the 
latter of which are unicellular but do not produce a 
mycelium. 
The fungi employed in medicine include corn smut 
( Ustilago Maydis), which grows upon various parts of 
Indian corn; and ergot, which replaces the grain of 
rye and other grasses. 
Eli ROT A (Ergot, Ergot of Rye). 
The sclerotium of Claviceps purpurea (Fam. Hypo- 
creacese), a fungus having two distinct periods in its 
