s now abandoned. This
study of germination leads also to a very definite conclusion with
regard to the genus _Uromyces_--that it is much more closely related
to _Puccinia_ and its immediate allies than to other unicellular
Uredines.

The germination of the pseudospores of the gelatinous Uredines of the
genus _Podisoma_ was studied by Tulasne.[H] These pretended spores,
he writes, are formed of two large conical cells, opposed by their
base and easily separating. They vary in length. The membrane of which
they are formed is thin and completely colourless in most of them,
though much thicker and coloured brown in others. It is principally
the spores with thin membranes that emit from near the middle very
obtuse tubes, into which by degrees, as they elongate, the contents of
the parent utricles pass. Each of the two cells of the supposed spore
may originate near its base four of these tubes, opposed to each other
at their point of origin, and their subsequent direction; but it is
rather rare for eight tubes, two by two, to decussate from the same
spore or basidium. Usually there are only two or three which are
completely developed, and these tend together towards the surface of
the fungus, which they pass, and expand at liberty in the air. The
tubes generally become thicker by degrees as they elongate, some only
slightly exceeding the length of the protospores. Others attain three
or four times that length, according to the greater or less distance
between the protospore and the surface of the plant. In the longest
tubes it is easy to observe how the colouring matter passes to their
outer extremity, leaving the portion nearest to the parent cell
colourless and lifeless. When nearly attaining their ultimate
dimensions, all the tubes are divided towards their outer extremity by
transverse septa into unequal cells; then simple and solitary
processes, of variable length and form, but attenuated upwards,
proceed from each segment of the initial tube, and produce at their
extremity an oval spore (teleutospore, Tul.), which is slightly curved
and unilocular. These spores absorb all the orange endochrome from the
original tubes. They appear in immense numbers on the surface of the
fungus, and when detached from their spicules fall upon the ground or
on any object which may be beneath them. So freely are they deposited
that they may be collected on paper, or a slip of glass, like a fine
gold-coloured powder. Again, these secondary