178 
MR. H. MARSHALL WARD OH THE STRUCTURE 
curved, and relatively thinner (fig. 5). Under such circumstances a conidium maybe 
seen to germinate before it falls off from the hypha; or the hyphse may go on growing 
longer and longer for many hours, to end at last, however, by forming long conidia at 
the extremity, the intermediate part dying off (fig. 2, a). Such abnormally long conidial 
segments are easily obtained by allowing the tufts to grow out from the stomata of 
cut-off pieces of epidermis suspended in water; the tufts thus produced are curiously 
suggestive of the so-called Ramularia, Cercospora, &c., of authors. The tufts of 
conidia are like Glceosporium Ficarice (Berk). 
The normal conidia are club-shaped or long ovoid bodies, slightly curved, and more 
pointed at the attached end. They were to be obtained in any quantity, on the leaves 
in the ditch referred to above, in May, and I was able to obtain pure sowings of them 
with ease, by removing them lightly with a fine camel-hair pencil, and thus not only to 
observe all stages of germination, but also to infect clean plants with certainty. 
Sown in water, in hanging drops kept over damp cells, the conidia germinate readily 
under favourable conditions. I have noticed that in many cases a sowing of two or 
three conidia in a drop remained unaltered for several days, the conidia finally dyi n g 
off, or one or two germinating at last; whereas, in drops containing some dozens of 
the conidia, the germination sometimes followed more rapidly and certainly. At first 
I put the phenomenon down as probably due to temperature ; further experience 
leads me to doubt the accuracy of that conclusion. Another point I am convinced of: 
conidia sown in a drop of water on a leaf of the living plant germinate more readily 
than those in a similar drop on glass. Nevertheless, it has been sufficiently easy to 
get the conidia to germinate in rain water, and I have seen hundreds, and perhaps 
thousands, of them in all stages of germination. 
To describe a concrete case. The conidium ( a , fig. 23) was sown in the morning 
about 8 o’clock, and remained almost unaltered for 24 hours ; next day, at 2 p.m.— 
i.e., 30 hours after sowing—it had commenced to germinate ( b ), throwing out a delicate 
tube at either end; at about 10 p.m. (the same night) the stage c was reached, the 
germinal tube at the one end had grown to a short length only, and then its end had 
swollen up into a secondary conidium, taking the protoplasm from the rest. It will be 
noticed that the thin tail-like germinal tube at the other end of the conidium became 
empty, and that three septa appeared—one cutting off* this empty tail-like tube, 
another dividing the main body of the conidium, and the third cutting off the 
successful germinal tube (as we may term it) from the now empty conidium. I 
mention these facts because it will be seen that these septa—usually three in number 
—constantly recur, and the tail-like unsuccessful appendage seems to be always formed 
and emptied as described. At 9 a.m. on the third day — i . e ., 49 hours after sowing — 
the secondary conidium (fig. 23, cl) had commenced to put forth a short lateral hypha, 
which by 2 p.m. (e) had grown out as a, thin, feebly-coiled, and very delicate hypha, 
while a second similar hypha was forming above. These thin hyphae grew a little 
longer, and then stopped ( f). 
