is’:
Respecting the little plant now described, a good deal of
diversity of opinion has existed, and indeed it still seems to remain,
in the minds of naturalists. T o d e , with whom the genus
originated, and who first published the species in question,
characterizes the little heads as inflated, opaque, elastic, and
producing the fructification externally. He describes the little
head, when the plant is mature, as bursting with an elastic
force, and scattering the sporidia on all sides. The rupture,
according to him, occurs at the base, and is so complete as to
surround the apex of the stem, and set it at liberty: it consequently
penetrates the cavity, and the membranous case collapsing,
eventually assumes a hemispherical figure. Botanists in general
do not seem to have examined this curious plant very carefully
since T o d e described i t ; but an idea seems to have crept
in, that the sporidia were produced internally. Thus, the figure
of Mucor sphcerocephalus of B u e l i a r d has been quoted,
which represents the seeds as copiously emitted from the interior
of the ruptured and half-vanished peridium. The same may
be said of Mucor Mucedo and Mucor roridus of B o l t o n .
I t is certain that the sporidia can be never seen to escape in
this manner. Professor L i n k , in his continuation of the Sp.
Plantarum by W i l l d e n o w , expressly denies, on the authority
of D i t m a r , that the sporidia are produced externally, but that
ill the young state, when the heads are watery and pellucid,
they are situated within them. He has therefore united our
plant to the genus Mucor, and cited the figure of B u l l i a r d
above mentioned. My friend M. F r i e s , though he has the genus
A s c o p h o r a in the introduction to his Systema, seems to have
adopted the opinion of L i n k in his subsequent work, the Systema
Orbis Vegetabilis; but 1 hope he may be induced to reconsider
the matter, with his usual liberality. 1 have sown
and propagated several crops of this fungus, and examined it
in all its states, and have always found the entire head covered
with sporidia at a certain period, and no rupture visible. After
the sporidia have fallen off, I have mostly found the inflated
membrane perfectly entire, and at all times, when possible
to examine it, quite empty. I have seen heads of an
hemispherical form, produced by a mere collapse of the membrane,
without any apparent dehiscence. The equal manner
in which the sporidia are spread over the whole head, precludes
the idea of their having escaped from the interior by any one
orifice.
Fig. 1. A. Mucedo, natural size. Fig. 2 . Plants in different stages o f growth.
Fig. 3. Mature plants. Fig. 4. Heads having lost their sporidia. Fig. 5.
A head collapsed. Fig. 6 . A head artificially ruptured. Fig. 7. Sporidia.
Fig. 8. Sporidiola; magnified.