spores of one section of the
_Coniomycetes_, and the pseudospores of the parasitical section.

PSEUDOSPORE is, perhaps, the most fitting name which can be applied to
the so-called spores of the parasitical _Coniomycetes_. Their peculiar
germination, and the production of reproductive bodies on the germ
tubes, prove their analogy to some extent with the prothallus of other
cryptogams, and necessitate the use of some term to distinguish them
from such spores as are reproductive without the intervention of a
promycelium. The differences between these pseudospores in the
several genera are confined in some instances to their septation, in
others to their mode of development. In the _AEcidiacei_ the
pseudospores are more or less globose, produced in chains within an
external cellular peridium. In the _Caeomacei_ they are simple,
sometimes produced in chains, and sometimes free, with or without a
caduceous peduncle. In the _Ustilaginei_ they are simple, dark
coloured, and occasionally attached in subglobose masses, as in
_Urocystis_ and _Thecaphora_, which, are more or less compact. In the
_Pucciniaei_ the distinctive features of the genera are based upon the
more or less complex nature of the pseudospores, which are bilocular
in _Puccinia_, trilocular in _Triphragmium_, multilocular in
_Phragmidium_, &c. In the curious genus _Podisoma_ the septate
pseudospores are involved in a gelatinous element. The diffusion of
these fruits is more or less complete according to their compact or
pulverulent nature. In some species of _Puccinia_ the sori are so
compact that they remain attached to the leaves long after they are
dead and fallen. In the genus _Melampsora_, the wedge-shaped
winter-pseudospores are not perfected until after the dead leaves have
for a long time remained and almost rotted on the ground. It is
probable that their ultimate diffusion is only accomplished by the
rotting and disintegration of the matrix. In the _Caeomacei_,
_Ustilaginei_, and _AEcidiacei_ the pseudospores are pulverulent, as in
some species of _Puccinia_, and are easily diffused by the motion of
the leaves in the wind, or the contact of passing bodies. Their
diffusion in the atmosphere seems to be much less than in the case of
the _Hyphomycetes_. By what means such a species as _Puccinia
malvacearum_, which has very compact sori, has become within so short
a period diffused over such a wide area, is a problem which in the
present state of our knowled