The brand-spores are the winter resting-spores of the Brand-Fungi. They arise in the tissues of the host-plant, which is often destroyed, and become free through the rupture of the epidermis; they are thick-walled, generally brown or violet, and very often possess warts, spines, or reticulate markings. Fruit-bodies, that is enclosed organs of reproduction, are found in few genera (_Sphacelotheca_, _Graphiola_; _Doassansia_, Fig. 97). In _Tolyposporium_, _Tuburcinia_, _Thecaphora_ (Fig. 102), etc., the brand-spores are united into a _ball of spores_. On germination the brand-spores behave as _chlamydospores_, namely, as the fundament of conidiophores, by emitting a short germ-tube, _i.e._ a conidiophore (“promycelium”). The USTILAGINACEÆ (Fig. 99, 2) have a short _transversely divided_ conidiophore, with _laterally_ developed conidia (comp. the basidia of the Protobasidiomycetes). The conidiophores of the TILLETIACEÆ are undivided (unicellular promycelia), and bear the conidia terminally, and so resemble the basidia of the Autobasidiomycetes. [Illustration: FIG. 98.--_Tuburcinia._ 1. _T. trientalis._ Hyphæ, some of which bear conidia at the apex, forcing themselves out between the epidermal cells on the under side of the leaf; 320 times natural size. 2. _T. trientalis._ A ball of spores in which some of the individual brand-spores are about to germinate; 520 times natural size. 3. _T. primulicola_: various forms of conidia (500 times natural size).] In _Tilletia_, _Entyloma_, _Neovossia_, _Tuburcinia_, the brand-spores germinate and form basidia-like conidiophores with spindle-shaped conidia; their mycelium, on the other hand, produces later only single, sickle-shaped conidia, so that two kinds of conidia are found, as in a few Basidiomycetes. In some species, _e.g. Ustilago hordei_, the brand-spores only germinate vegetatively and form a mycelium. In nutritive solutions (solutions of dung, etc.) where they live as _saprophytes_, the brand-spores of many species emit germ-tubes, and on these, _yeast-like conidia_ are produced by repeated budding, which grow into mycelia only when the nutritive solution is exhausted. These conidia have not the power of producing alcoholic fermentation. The very numerous conidia, which are found in the dung of herbivorous animals, are probably the yeast-conidia of Brand-Fungi. The brand-spores, which are eaten by animals with the grain and hay, pass into the dung and without doubt give rise to a very rich multiplication of yeast-conidia.