NOMAD FUNGI 
81 
seed when the vigour of its growth is ceasing. I need only I’emind you 
that a rapidly-growing fruit-tree, in which a superabundance of sap is 
present, seldom fruits ; and that a gardener who wishes to make a 
geranium flower stints its supply of water. It is true that there is a 
seeming exception to this law in the case of trees which flower in 
spring, before the leaves are out; the common Coltsfoot (Tussilago) 
would also seem to contradict the rule ; but really they obey it. In all 
these cases the buds which are to develop into the flowers are formed 
at the close of growth in autumn and only wait till spring to complete 
their development. Applying these considerations to the Uredineae, 
we are naturally led to look for the sexual process in the production 
either of the Puccinia or of the CEcidium. The probability is vastly 
in favour of the latter, viz : that fertilisation occurs in the mycelium 
produced by the germination of the sporidia, and that the CEcidium is 
the product thereof. Curiously enough, it is here that we meet with 
the only known organs which suggest a sexual process in the Uredineae, 
the spermogones. These are minute flask-shaped bodies, which are pro¬ 
duced on the same leaf which bears the CEcidium, usually a little 
earlier, sometimes on the opposite side of the leaf, sometimes among 
the CEcidia themselves. They contain an enormous number of small 
oblong cells, which are perfectly transparent, and enveloped in a 
mucous secretion. These were called spermatia, from a suspicion that 
they represent the male element in a reproductive act; this suspicion 
was strengthened by the difflculty of inducing them to germinate. 
Recently, however, it is said that a well-known French biologist has 
succeeded in compelling them to germinate, and thus produce a 
mycelium; but remembering how a pollen-grain may be said to 
germinate, in a sense, when it sends out a pollen-tube, we may be ex¬ 
cused for waiting for further investigation before we consider such a 
statement a bar to the truth of the supposed function of the spermatia. 
It is at least probable, both from their size and character, their vast 
numbers and their mode and time of growth, that these bodies are the 
male organs, and that the female organs are produced and fertilised 
on the spot where the CEcidia are subsequently formed. The CEcidia 
would then be the true fruit of the fungus. The whole subject is at 
present wrapped in mystery. I often think how the next generation, 
after clearing up this and many similar difficulties, will look down upon 
us as a crowd of bunglers, who did not know how to use our micro¬ 
scopes. The subject is one of groat interest to us from our present 
point of view, because, if the reasoning just given should turn out to 
represent the facts correctly, the whole scheme of arrangement 
of these fungi must be remodelled. The CEcidium-stage, and not the 
Puccinia-stage, would then be the typical one, and our classification 
must be founded upon that basis. 
It may be asked whether, under these circumstances, it is right to 
continue to give names to these stages of growth, as if they were 
’independent species, to talk, e.g., of (Ecidiurn violcc as well as of 
Puccinia violarum. To this question the answer must, at present, be 
