-18 ArtTHuR: PROBLEMS IN THE Stupy oF PLant Rusts 
we have the spermogonium appearing just in advance of the teleu- 
tospore. There is but one possible further reduction, and that is 
the suppression of the spermogonium, and we then have the whole 
cycle reduced to the simple formation of teleutospores, 
To present the whole basis on which my argument rests, would 
take altogether too much time, and even to answer the queries and 
possible objections that will arise in the mind of every one who 
has some acquaintance with the subject, is equally out of question 
at the present, and I will instead give the conclusions at which I 
have arrived, and trust to some future opportunity for substanti- 
ating them. 
I look upon the spermogonium as the beginning of the life- 
cycle, or more logically, the most important point in the cycle, in 
a fully developed rust organism. With it, and its associated 
spore-form, is always found the greatest exhibition of fungous 
vigor, showing some remnant of the original sexual power. The 
teleutospores I consider the close of the life-cycle, and the struc- 
ture that is absolutely essential to the species. In the course of 
reduction, due to parasitism, the female sexual structures disap- 
pear first, then the male, and the final state is that of a purely 
sporophytic form. 
If in this review of some of the problems confronting the ure- 
dinologist, I have more bewildered you than clarified the subject, 
you may be somewhat consoled by knowing that it is the frame 
of mind in which uredinologists themselves are usually plunged 
when they try to think out a connected and logical statement for 
these perplexing fungi. The subject at the present time is too 
much in shadow to present a concrete, recognizable picture. 
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