Fungi: Their Nature and UsesCooke, M. C. (Mordecai Cubitt)
Science
Fungi: Their Nature and Uses
Cooke, M. C. (Mordecai Cubitt)
Fungi
twigs soon end their growth; they all separate their inner space from
the principal stem, by means of a cross partition placed close to it.
All the ends, and also that of the principal stem, swell about the
same time something like a bladder, and on the upper free half of each
swelling appear again, simultaneously, several fine protuberances,
close together, which quickly grow to little oval bladders filled with
protoplasm, and resting on their bearers with a sub-sessile,
pedicellate, narrow basis, and which at length separate themselves
through a partition as in _Aspergillus_. The detached cells are the
conidia of our fungus; only one is formed on each stalk. When the
formation is completed in the whole of the panicle, the little
branches which compose it are deprived of their protoplasm in favour
of the conidia; it is the same with the under end of the principal
stem, the limits of which are marked by a cross partition. The
delicate wall of these parts shrinks up until it is unrecognizable;
all the conidia of the panicle approach one another to form an
irregular grape-like bunch, which rests loosely on the bearer, and
from which it easily falls away as dust. If they be brought into water
they fall off immediately; only the empty, shrivelled, delicate skins
are to be found on the branch which bore them, and the places on which
they are fixed to the principal stem clearly appear as round
circumscribed hilums, generally rather arched towards the exterior.
The development of the main stem is not ended here. It remains solid
and filled with protoplasm as far as the portion which forms the end
through its conidia. Its end, which is to be found among these pieces,
becomes pointed after the ripening of the first panicle, pushes the
end of the shrivelled member on one side, and grows to the same length
as the height of one or two panicles, and then remains still, to form
a second panicle similar to the first. This is later equally
perfoliated as the first, then a third follows, and thus a large
number of panicles are produced after and over one another on the same
stem. In perfect specimens, every perfoliated panicle hangs loosely to
its original place on the surface of the stem, until by shaking or the
access of water to it, it falls immediately into the single conidia,
or the remains of branches, and the already-mentioned oval hilums are
left behind. Naturally, the stem becomes longer by every perfoliation;
in luxuriant specimens the length can reach that of some lines. Its
partition is already, by the ripening of the first panicle from the
beginning of its foundation, strong and brown; it is only colourless
at the end which is extending, and in all new formations. During all
these changes the filament remains either unbranched, except as
regards the transient panicles, or it sends out here and there, at the
perfoliated spots, especially from the lower ones, one or two strong
branches, standing opposite one another and resembling the principal
stem.
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