Page:EB1911 - Volume 11.djvu/347

 themselves to it, then another branch shoots out from the tuft and repeats the process, like a strawberry-runner. Appressoria are also formed by some parasitic fungi, as a minute flattening of the tip of a very short branch (Erysiphe), or the swollen end of any hypha which comes in contact with the surface of the host (Piptocephalis, Syncephalis), haustoria piercing in each case the cell-wall below. In Botrytis the appressoria assume the form of dense tassels of short branches. In Arthrobotrys side-branches of the mycelium sling themselves around the host (Tylenchus) much as tendrils round a support.

Many fungi (Phallus, Agaricus, Fumago, &c.) when strongly growing put out ribbon-like or cylindrical cords, or sheet-like mycelial plates of numerous parallel hyphae, all growing together equally, and fusing by anastomoses, and in this way extend long distances in the soil, or over the surfaces of leaves, branches, &c. These mycelial strands may be white and tender, or the outer hyphae may be hard and black, and very often the resemblance of the subterranean forms to a root is so marked that they are termed rhizomorphs. The outermost hyphae may even put forth thinner hyphae, radiating into the soil like root-hairs, and the convergent tips may be closely appressed and so divided by septa as to resemble the root-apex of a higher plant (Armillaria mellea).

Sclerotia.—Fungi, like other plants, are often found to store up large quantities of reserve materials (oil, glycogen, carbohydrates, &c.) in special parts of their vegetative tissues, where they lie accumulated between a period of active assimilation and one of renewed activity, forming reserves to be consumed particularly during the formation of large fructifications. These reserve stores may be packed away in single hyphae or in swollen cells, but the hyphae containing them are often gathered into thick cords or mycelial strands (Phallus, mushroom, &c.), or flattened and anastomosing ribbons and plates, often containing several kinds of hyphae (Merulius lacrymans). In other cases the strands undergo differentiation into an outer layer with blackened, hardened cell-walls and a core of ordinary hyphae, and are then termed rhizomorphs (Armillaria mellea), capable not only of extending the fungus in the soil, like roots, but also of lying dormant, protected by the outer casing. Such aggregations of hyphae frequently become knotted up into dense masses of interwoven and closely packed hyphae, varying in size from that of a pin’s head or a pea (Peziza, Coprinus) to that of a man’s fist or head, and weighing 10 to 25 &#8468; or more (Polyporus Mylittae, P. tumulosus, Lentinus Woermanni, P. Sapurema, &c.). The interwoven hyphae fuse and branch copiously, filling up all interstices. They also undergo cutting up by numerous septa into short cells, and these often divide again in all planes, so that a pseudoparenchyma results, the walls of which may be thickened and swollen internally, or hardened and black on the exterior. In many cases the swollen cell-walls serve as reserves, and sometimes the substance is so thickly deposited in strata as to obliterate the lumen, and the hyphae become nodular (Polyporus sacer, P. rhinoceros, Lentinus Woermanni). The various sclerotia, if kept moist, give rise to the fructifications of the fungi concerned, much as a potato tuber does to a potato plant, and in the same way the reserve materials are consumed. They are principally Polyporei, Agaricini, Pezizae; none are known among the Phycomycetes, Uredineae or Ustilagineae. The functions of mycelial strands, rhizomorphs and sclerotia are not only to collect and store materials, but also to extend the fungus, and in many cases similar strands act as organs of attack. The same functions of storage in advance of fructification are also exercised by the stromata so common in Ascomycetes.

Tissue Differentiations.—The simpler mycelia consist of hyphae all alike and thin-walled, or merely differing in the diameter of the branches of various orders, or in their relations to the environment, some plunging into the substratum like roots, others remaining on its surface, and others (aerial hyphae) rising into the air. Such hyphae may be multicellular, or they may consist of simple tubes with numerous nuclei and no septa (Phycomycetes), and are then non-cellular. In the more complex tissue-bodies of higher fungi, however, we find considerable differences in the various layers or strands of hyphae.

An epidermis-like or cortical protective outer layer is very common, and is usually characterized by the close septation of the densely interwoven hyphae and the thickening and dark colour of their outer walls (sclerotia, Xylaria, &c.). Fibre-like hyphae with the lumen almost obliterated by the thick walls occur in mycelial cords (Merulius). Latex-tubes abound in the tissues of Lactarius, Stereum, Mycena, Fistulina, filled with white or coloured milky fluids, and Istvanffvi has shown that similar tubes with fluid or oily contents are widely spread in other Hymenomycetes. Sometimes fatty oil or watery sap is found in swollen hyphal ends, or such tubes contain coloured sap. Cystidia and paraphyses may be also classed here. In Merulius lacrymans Hartig has observed thin-walled hyphae with large lumina, the septa of which are perforated like those of sieve-tubes.

As regards its composition, the cell-wall of fungi exhibits variations of the same kind as those met with in higher plants. While the fundamental constituent is a cellulose in many Mucorini and other Phycomycetes, in others bodies like pectose, callose, &c., commonly occur, and Wisselingh’s researches show that chitin, a gluco-proteid common in animals, forms the main constituent in many cases, and is probably deposited directly as such, though, like the other substances, it may be mixed with cellulose. As in other cell-walls, so here the older membranes may be altered by deposits of various substances, such as resin, calcium oxalate, colouring matters; or more profoundly altered throughout, or in definite layers, by lignification, suberization (Trametes, Daedalea), or swelling to a gelatinous mucilage (Tremella, Gymnosporangium), while cutinization of the outer layers is common. One of the most striking alterations of cell-walls is that termed carbonization, in which the substance gradually turns black, hard and brittle, as if charred—e.g. Xylaria, Ustulina, some sclerotia. At the other extreme the cell-walls of many lichen-fungi are soft and colourless, but turn blue in iodine, as does starch. The young cell-wall is always tenuous and flexible, and may remain so throughout, but in many cases thickenings and structural differentiations, as well as the changes referred to above, alter the primary wall considerably. Such thickening may be localized, and pits (e.g. Uredospores, septa of Basidiomycetes), spirals, reticulations, rings, &c. (capillitium fibres of Podaxon, Calostoma, Battarrea), occur as in the vessels of higher plants, while sculptured networks, pittings and so forth are as common on fungus-spores as they are on pollen grains.

Cell-Contents.—The cells of fungi, in addition to protoplasm, nuclei and sap-vacuoles, like other vegetable cells, contain formed and amorphous bodies of various kinds. Among those directly visible to the microscope are oil drops, often coloured (Uredineae) crystals of calcium oxalate (Phallus, Russula), proteid crystals (Mucor, Pilobolus, &c.) and resin (Polyporei). The oidia of Erysipheae contain fibrosin bodies and the hyphae of Saprolegnieae cellulin bodies, but starch apparently never occurs. Invisible to the microscope, but rendered visible by reagents, are glycogen, Mucor, Ascomycetes, yeast, &c. In addition to these cell-contents we have good indirect evidence of the existence of large series of other bodies, such as proteids, carbohydrates, organic acids, alkaloids, enzymes, &c. These must not be confounded with the numerous substances obtained by chemical analysis of masses of the fungus, as there is often no proof of the manner of occurrence of such bodies, though we may conclude with a good show of probability that some of them also exist preformed in the living cell. Such are sugars (glucose, mannite, &c.), acids (acetic, citric and a whole series of lichen-acids), ethereal oils and resinous bodies, often combined with the intense colours of fungi and lichens, and a number of powerful alkaloid poisons, such as muscarin (Amanita), ergotin (Claviceps), &c.

Among the enzymes already extracted from fungi are invertases (yeasts, moulds, &c.), which split cane-sugar and other complex sugars with hydrolysis into simpler sugars such as dextrose and levulose; diastases, which convert starches into sugars (Aspergillus, &c.); cytases, which dissolve cellulose similarly (Botrytis, &c.); peptases, using the term as a general one for all enzymes which convert proteids into peptones and other bodies (Penicillium, &c.); lipases, which break up fatty oils (Empusa, Phycomyces, &c.); oxydases, which bring about the oxidations and changes of colour observed in Boletus, and zymase, extracted by Buchner from yeast, which brings about the conversion of sugar into alcohol and carbon-dioxide. That such enzymes are formed in the protoplasm is evident from the behaviour of hyphae, which have been observed to pierce cell-membranes, the chitinous coats of insects, artificial collodion films and layers of wax, &c. That a fungus can secrete more than one enzyme, according to the materials its hyphae have to attack, has been shown by the extraction of diastase, inulase, trehalase, invertase, maltase, raffinase, malizitase, emulsin, trypsin and lipase from Aspergillus by Bourquelot, and similar events occur in other fungi. The same fact is indicated by the wide range of organic substances which can be utilized by Penicillium and other moulds, and by the behaviour of parasitic fungi which destroy various cell-contents and tissues. Many of the coloured pigments of fungi are fixed in the cell-walls or excreted to the outside (Peziza aeruginosa). Matruchot has used them for staining the living protoplasm of other fungi by growing the two together. Striking instances of coloured mycella are afforded by Corticium sanguineum, blood-red; Elaphomyces Leveillei, yellow-green; Chlorosplenium aeruginosum, verdigris green; and the Dematei, brown or black.

Nuclei.—Although many fungi have been regarded as devoid of nuclei, and all have not as yet been proved to contain them, the numerous investigations of recent years have revealed them in the cells of all forms thoroughly examined, and we are justified in concluding that the nucleus is as essential to the cell of a fungus as to that of other organisms. The hyphae of many contain numerous, even hundreds of nuclei (Phycomycetes); those of others have several (Aspergillus) in each segment, or only two (Exoascus) or one (Erysiphe) in each cell. Even the isolated cells of the yeast plant have each one nucleus. As a rule the nuclei of the mycelium are very minute (1.5–2 in Phycomyces), but those of many asci and spores are large and easily rendered visible. As with other plants, so in fungi the essential process of fertilization consists in the fusion of two nuclei, but owing to the absence of well-marked sexual organs from many fungi, a peculiar interest attaches to certain nuclear fusions in the vegetative cells or in young spores of many forms. Thus in Ustilagineae the chlamydospores, and in Uredineae