Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883
Various
Science -- Periodicals
With a linear magnitude of 480, the sporangia have a transverse diameter
of one to five millimeters, or a little more in the larger specimens.
The filaments of mycelium, under the same magnitude, appear exceedingly
thin and finer than a hair. The shape of the conidia, though presenting
some varieties, is, notwithstanding, always perfectly characteristic.
Sometimes they resemble in appearance the segments of a semicircle more
or less great, sometimes the wings of butterflies, double or single. It
is only exceptionally that their form is so irregular.
Again, when young, they are perfectly colorless and transparent;
sometimes they are of a beautiful violet or blue color (mykianthinin
mykocyanin). Upon this variety of the Limnophysalis hyalina depends the
vomiting of blue matters observed by Dr. John Sullivan, at Havana, in
patients affected with pernicious intermittent fever (algid and comatose
form). In the perfectly mature sporangia, the sporidia have a dark brown
color (mykophaein). From the sporidia, the Italian physicians, Lanzi and
Perrigi, in the course of their attempts at its cultivation, have seen
produced the Monilia penicinata friesii, which is, consequently, the
second generation of the Limnophysalis hyalina, in which alternate
generation takes place, admitting that their observations may be
verified. The sporangia are never spherical, but always flat. When
they are perfectly developed, they are distinctly separated from their
filament of mycelium by a septum--that is to say, by limiting lines
plainly marked. It is not rare, however, to see the individual sporangia
perfectly isolated and disembarrassed of their filament of mycelium
floating in the water. It seems to me very probable that these isolated
sporangia are identical with the hyaline coagula so accurately described
by Frerichs, who has observed them in the blood of patients dying of
intermittent fevers. But if two sporangia are observed with their bases
coherent without intermediary filaments of mycelium, it seems to me
probable that the reproduction has taken place through the union, which
happens in the following manner: Two filaments of mycelium become
juxtaposed; after which the filaments of mycelium disappear in the
sporangia newly formed, which by this same metamorphosis are deprived of
the faculty of reproducing themselves through the filaments of myclium
of which they are deprived. The smallest portion of a filament
of mycelium evidently possesses the faculty of producing the new
individuals.
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