3 68 



FUNGI 



copiously, and ultimately bear at the ends asci containing each eight 

 .ascospores, and the envelope-tissue is contributed by shoots from the 

 neighbouring mycele and from the base of the carpogone. 



As already mentioned above, no acrospore stage intervenes here 

 between sporocarp and sporocarp, i.e. the ascospore, on germinating, 

 produces a thallus, which again bears the sporocarp directly. Gym- 

 noascus is a saprophyte growing on dung. 



5. ASCOBOLUS (Pers.). The cafpogone arises on the mycele in the 

 form of a thick curved sausage-shaped lateral hypha, which becomes 

 divided by transverse walls into six or seven cells, about as long as they 



are broad. While in this stage the 

 farther end of it is clasped by the 

 branching end of a much thinner 

 hypha like one of the ordinary my- 

 celial hyphae which, it may be as- 

 sumed, is the antherid, from analogy 

 with those types already discussed. 

 At all x events, it soon loses its iden- 

 tity in the dense growth of envelope- 

 hyphae which,' immediately after 

 this stage has been reached, are 

 produced both from the ordinary 

 mycele and from the hyphae which 

 bear the carpogone and presump- 

 tive antherid. These envelope- 

 hyphae, which soon enclose the 

 carpogone in a round mass with 

 a differentiated rind, next proceed 

 to develop in the upper region over 

 the carpogone (which is situated 

 in the basal portion) the sub- 



hymenial layer of a discocarp. From this subhymenial layer there 

 rise upward the straight perpendicular paraphyses. By the time the 

 development has gone so far, the carpogone gives rise to a dozen or 

 more ascogenous hyphae from a cell near the middle of the row, 

 which has manifestly obtained from its neighbours contributions from 

 their contents. The ascogenous hyphae grow upward to the subhy- 

 menial layer, where they branch and spread about among the roots, 

 so to speak, of the paraphyses, and here bear asci. The asci grow 

 straight upward among the paraphyses to the hymenial surface. The 

 portion of the rind (envelope-tissue) immediately over the hymenial 

 surface is ruptured, in consequence of the expansion of this surface 



FIG. 305. Ascobolusfurfuraccus Pers. Young 

 sporocarp in longitudinal section (diagram- 

 matic), m. mycele ; A, hymenium ; c, car- 

 pogone with ascogenous hyphae, s, in the 

 subhymenial layer, and a, asci (shaded); /, 

 antherid ; pr, tissue of envelope giving rise 

 to paraphyses. (After Janczewski.) 



