MR. GEORGE MASSEE ON THE THELEPHORER. 113 
reproductive phase is entirely suppressed, the gonidial stage alone 
serving for the continuation of the species, and the sporophore 
attains to a high standard of development and differentiation. It 
will be observed that the two factors of subordinate importance 
in the Ascomycetes—the sporophore and gonidial mode of repro- 
duetion—entirely constitute the plant in the Basidiomycetes, 
Whereas the ascocarp, so conspicuous in the Ascomycetes, is not 
represented. It is true that Sautermeister * and others have in- 
dicated the presence of ascocarps in the Basidiomycetes, but such 
statements have not as yet been corroborated, and, even should 
this be done, it could not be considered as anything very extra- 
ordinary if we accept the above explanation as to the origin of 
the group, which would be strengthened rather than otherwise by 
such corroboration or discovery. 
Towards the base of the Ascomycetes the ascocarp becomes a 
less conspicuous feature, and in many of the Uredinez is altogether 
absent, the teleutospore form being alone developed. If this 
statement as to the absence of the æcidial state cannot be 
accepted in its entirety by the advocates of hetercecism, the main 
argument remains unaffected, as the teleutospore condition is 
unquestionably most conspicuous and universal in the Uredinex. 
All teleutospores agree in being specially modified terminal 
cells, and in most instances possess the further peculiarity of 
remaining firmly attached after maturity to the hypha from which 
they originated ; hence they are often described as pedicellate, 
and frequently germinate before they break away from the host. 
During germination all or only the uppermost cells of the com- 
pound teleutospore emit a long germ-tube, from the apical region 
of which, in some species of Puccinia, ZEcidium, Triphragmium, 
Phragmidium, and other genera, spores are produced on slender 
sterigmata. These spores on germination produce either directly 
or indirectly a plant similar to the one from which they originated. 
In the genus Podisoma the teleutospores with their long sup- 
porting hyphe or pedicels are firmly agglutinated together i 
a compact mass which is tremelloid when moist, and when the 
ating closely resemble in general appear- 
teleutospores are germin 
new, and, further, the various 
ance certain species of the Tremelli | > 
structures in the two cases are homologous; but in the last-name 
order differentiation has proceeded one step further. In nn Ure- 
dines proper the teleutospore in some genera falls away from its 
* Bot. Zeit. 1876, p. 819. 
