438 MR. G. MASSEE ON THE 
On the Origin of the Basidiomycetes. 
By Grorce Mass&z, F.L.3. 
[Read 18th January, 1900.] 
(Prates 15 & 16.) 
Tur recent extensive researches by Brefeld (1) have thrown 
much light on the morphology and affinities of the group of 
fungi known as the Basidiomycetes, and even those who cannot 
accept his interpretation as to affinities in its entirety, are 
doubtless ready to admit that, due in a large measure to his 
investigations and deductions therefrom, we possess at the 
present day a clearer and truer conception of the general 
development or evolution of the group of fungi under con- 
sideration than heretofore. 
As is well known, the gradual differentiation of the specialized 
portions of hyphz or basidia immediately bearing conidia, are 
considered by Brefeld as constituting the one essential faetor 
in indicating true affinity and descent in the Basidiomycetes. 
Hence in the Protobasidiomycetes, characterized by having 
basidia divided into two to four superposed cells by transverse 
septa, each cell producing a conidium, Brefeld sees a counter- 
part in the promycelium or the fertile hyphe produced directly 
on spore germination in the Ustilaginez, and inclines to the view 
that the Protobasidiomycetes may be derived from the Usti- 
lagines through the Uredine®, Auricularie, and Pilacreæ, when 
the transversely septate basidium is replaced by a vertically 
divided basidium in Tremellee and Daeryomycet&; a transition 
group, leading to the Autobasidiomycetes, including the Gastro- 
mycetse, Phalloidee, and Hymenomycete, characterized by 
basidia consisting of a single cell—neither transversely nor 
vertically septate—and bearing the spores at or near the apex, 
and usually definite in number. 
The existence of septate basidia, however, is not an entirely 
recent discovery; those of Pilacre Petersü, Berk. & Broome, 
and Hypochnus purpureus, Tul., having been correctly described 
and beautifully figured by Tulasne (2) twenty-seven years ago. 
In fact tl.c basidia of the last-named species were first described 
by Tulasne (3) thirty-four years ago, the description being 
followed by the paragraph quoted below—the first time we 
