NATURE OF FUNGI.

23

of corals; but it is now perfectly certain that such notionswere ill-founded, and that these bodies agree in the mainprinciples of growth and structure with other vegetables. Inseveral species the complete progress from the minute sporeto the perfect plant has been traced step by step, till thecircle has been complete, and the new spore ready again forreproduction. In one group alone, as stated above (p. 13),doubts exist as to the real nature of the objects it contains,because the general mass does not usually cousist of real fila-ments or cells, and the substance of which they are composedis of a different chemical nature from that which forms theframework of all known vegetables.* Ultimately, however,true cells are always produced, and in one genus spiral vessels;and both Mr. Broome and myself have in certain genera ob-served distinct sacs growing from the fundamental frameworkand not from the mere slimy mass which it encloses, in whichthe spores are developed, and sometimes from a specific point,as in the higher Fungi (Plate 1, fig. 6), the free portion of thespore being rough with granules, while the inner portion, fromits contact with other spores, is smooth.f Besides, in Lyco-gala terrestris there is as distinct a fibrillose spawn penetra-ting the soil as in any Lycoperdon (see Corda, fasc. 6, t. 2,fig. 37; and text, p. 15). Fries, moreover, in a letter receivedwhile writing this, calls my attention to the early stage ofthe fructiferous cells in the genus Polysaccum, and to theamorphous, unetuous, semiliquid state of young PolyporusSchweinitzii, resembling closely that of an infant JEthulium.Though, however, I have myself little doubt as to these pro-ductions being vegetables, as well as other Fungi, and I am

* It is something like tho “sarcode” of Dujardin, and not “cellulose.”

t Exactly as in the achenia of many Composites, as, for example, in those ofHhagadiotus.