112 FIRST GROUP. THALLOPHYTES. 



branch (/'), which unites its apex with the process from the archicarp. Thereupon 

 numerous slender hyphae shoot forth (//) from the main filament that bears the rosette 

 of sexual organs, and grow round them and wrap them in a thick felted tissue. This tissue 

 constitutes the body of the fructification, on the upper side of which closely crowded 

 hyphae arise at once to form the hymenial layer. Finally the fructification takes the 

 form of a peziza-cup, as shown in Fig. 69, and produces the ascospores in its hymenium. 

 Woronin made similar observations onPezizagranulosa and P. scutellata. In these 

 plants branches divided into three or more cells rise from the cells of the mycelium, 

 and their terminal cell enlarges to a spherical or ovoid form but puts out no process ; 

 from the cell beneath it spring two or more slender tubes which embrace the other, 

 and the sexual apparatus thus formed becomes closely invested by numerous hyphae 

 which grow up from beneath it ; out of these the peziza-cup is developed. In Asco- 

 bolus pulcherrimus the archicarp is a vermiform body which Tulasne calls the scolecite ; 

 this is a branch "of the mycelium, and consists of a row of short cells which are broader 

 than those of the mycelium. Adjacent filaments put out small antheridial branches, 

 the tenninal cells of which attach themselves firmly to the anterior portion of the 

 scolecite ; and this together with the fertilising organ is then invested with a covering 

 of branched hyphae derived from the adjacent part of the mycelium ; in this way a coil 

 of hyphae is formed with the scolecite inside it, and this structure at length developes 

 into the cup-shaped fructification. In all these cases the ascogenous filaments have 

 not been observed to originate in the archicarp, but their resemblance to the previous 

 and following examples leave this point no longer in doubt. 



In the subdivision of the Discomycetes which we are considering there are species 

 in which the mycelium produces gonidia, and the immature fructification is a resting 

 sclerotium. Peziza Fuckeliana especially has been carefully observed by De Bary with 

 reference to these points. The mycelium of this fungus is found in autumn on dead moist 

 leaves of the grape-vine : erect segmented filaments rise from it to the height of some 

 millimetres ; these filaments branch copiously at their upper end and produce numerous 

 ellipsoidal gonidia on the ultimate ramifications, which can germinate at once and form 

 new mycelia. This stage of the Peziza was once supposed to be an independent plant 

 and was known by the name of Botrytis tinerea. Sclerotia are subsequently formed, 

 according to Brefeld, by vegetative growth of shoots on the mycelium. These sclerotia 

 appear as weals of various shape and from a half to several millimetres broad in the 

 tissue of the leaf inhabited by the fungus and remain after its decay ; they consist of 

 densely felted hyphae and have a black cortical covering. If they are placed on moist 

 earth soon after they are formed, they develope a large number of gonidiophores ; but 

 if they pass through a resting-state of some months' duration, and are then placed on 

 damp soil, they produce small stalked cups which may be a centimetre in height, and 

 which consist of hyphal tissue ; the shallow cavity of these cups bears a hymenium in 

 which ascospores are formed, as is represented in Fig. 69 ; this is the fructification 

 of Peziza Fuckeliana. 



In this group are included various other genera with small fructifications, and also the 

 Morchelleae, Helvelleae, Spatularieae and Geoglossum, in which the fructifications are 

 like stalked caps or are club-shaped or of some similar form ; these often attain a very 

 considerable size and have the hymenium spread over large portions of their surface. 



5. The TTJBEPtACEAE 1 have subterranean tuber-like fructifications. The mycelium 

 spreads in the ground and perhaps lives parasitically on the roots of trees, as Reess has 



1 Tulasne, Fungi hypogaei, Paris, 1851. De Bary, Morph. u. Phys. d. Pilze, p. 90 ff. Reess, Ueber 

 d. Parasitismus von Elaphomyces gramilatus (Bot. Ztg. 1880, p. 730) ; Id. Ueber Elaphomyces in 

 Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Ges. 1885. [Hesse, R. Cryptica, eine neue Tuberaceengattung (Pringsh. Jahrb. 

 XV. 1884). See also Frank's interesting paper, Ueber d. Ernahrung gewisser Baume durch Pilze in 

 Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Ges. 1885]. 



