Monograph of the Truffles

It should not be thought, however, that the entire work of nutrition is carried out by lymph alone. For air—considered equally from a material perspective, and from a dynamic perspective, heat (20)—assists in this duty, just as it does in other vegetables. What of light and electricity? It is certain, at least regarding the former, that truffles tend continuously toward the surface of the earth, and they are frequently encountered partially submerged (21).

Having concluded those matters which pertain to the structure and mode of nutrition of truffles, it remains for us to say something about their reproduction. Indeed, some credence seems to have been given to the seed of truffles since the most ancient times. For Athenaeus reported that there were those who convinced themselves that truffles were born from seed, and that they were sown from seed brought from elsewhere (Book II, Deipnosophistae). For a long time, however, mycologists believed that truffles do not produce seeds in any other way than other species of fungi, in which the dust emitted at a certain time was held to be seed. Geoffroy the Younger was the first to speak of the seeds of truffles, and he determined their location most precisely. We owe the first illustrations of such seeds, however, to Micheli. De Borch, in the year 1780, also discussed the seeds of the Tuber magnatum white truffle. Then came Bulliard, a most fierce proponent of fungal generation, who, when he scrutinized the parenchyma of the truffle further, held the bodies (sporidia) that Geoffroy and Micheli considered seeds to be true small truffles capable of reproducing their own species, and he called the truffle "viviparous."

The reproductive corpuscles of truffles, or sporidia, are initially whitish and transparent, but upon maturation they usually assume a more or less intense color, swell, and become opaque. From this comes the color of the flesh in the truffle (see Tuber). Then the surrounding humor is absorbed, and the entire cavity of the sporangium is subsequently occupied by sporidia. Once the sporangium is ruptured, the sporidia are poured into the cells of the parenchyma, which, indeed, being corrupted by age, initially nourishes the germinating seeds. The minimal mass of the sporidia favors their dissemination; for water, wetting the surface of the humus, takes them up and carries them to di-