Discourses: Biological & Geological: EssaysHuxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Discourses: Biological & Geological: Essays
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Biology; Geology
In structure, however, the _Peronospora_ is as much a mould as the common
_Penicillium_; and just as the _Penicillium_ multiplies by the breaking
up of its hyphoe into separate rounded bodies, the spores; so, in the
_Peronospora_, certain of the hyphoe grow out into the air through the
interstices of the superficial cells of the potato plant, and develop
spores. Each of these hyphoe usually gives off several branches. The ends
of the branches dilate and become closed sacs, which eventually drop off
as spores. The spores falling on some part of the same potato plant, or
carried by the wind to another, may at once germinate, throwing out
tubular prolongations which become hyphoe, and burrow into the substance
of the plant attacked. But, more commonly, the contents of the spore
divide into six or eight separate portions. The coat of the spore gives
way, and each portion then emerges as an independent organism, which has
the shape of a bean, rather narrower at one end than the other, convex on
one side, and depressed or concave on the opposite. From the depression,
two long and delicate cilia proceed, one shorter than the other, and
directed forwards. Close to the origin of these cilia, in the substance
of the body, is a regularly pulsating, contractile vacuole. The shorter
cilium vibrates actively, and effects the locomotion of the organism,
while the other trails behind; the whole body rolling on its axis with
its pointed end forwards.
The eminent botanist, De Bary, who was not thinking of our problem, tells
us, in describing the movements of these "Zoospores," that, as they swim
about, "Foreign bodies are carefully avoided, and the whole movement has
a deceptive likeness to the voluntary changes of place which are observed
in microscopic animals."
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