ASCOMYCES. 399 



Order IX.— GYMNOASCE^. Sadebeck.* 



Without a receptacle, or an indication of one only in 

 the more highly developed genera ; asci either single or 

 in little tufts, arising from widely creeping hyphre j or 

 more or less closely crowded together into hymenia; 

 or, lastly, arising from the terminal branches of copiously 

 ramifying hyphse in pellets, which are covered with a 

 lax mycelial veil. 



Name — yv/ivog, naked, cktkoq, a leather bottle; here 

 meaning an ascus. 



Genus I. — Ascomyces. Mont, et Desm., " Ann. Sc. Nat.," 



ser. 3, vol. xi. p. 345 (1849). 



Parasitic on living plants ; asci not seated on a proper 

 receptacle, but on the cuticle of the host-plant, closely 

 pressed together in little tufts or extended layers, arising 

 from the mycelium, which ramifies between the epi- 

 dermal cells and the cuticle. Their effect is to cause the 

 injured parts to change colour, to swell into blisters, and 

 become much enlarged. The asci are very small, 

 cylindrical, clavate, or subpyriform, and contain 8 (or 

 more ?) sporidia. (Plate XII. fig. 79.) 



Name — aaicog, ascus, /mvicrig, a fungus ; fungi consisting 

 of asci only. 



Arrangement of the Species. 



A. Perennial mycelium spreading through the 

 intercellular spaces of the young 

 shoots in spring. 



(a) Asci furnished with a stem-cell . . species 1-3 



(b) Asci not furnished with a stem-cell „ 4 



* Professor Sadebeck has contributed a revision of this order to Dr. 

 Winter's new edition of Rabenhorst's " Cryptogamin-Flora von Deutsch- 

 land," the arrangement of which is followed here as regards the genus 

 Ascomyces. The order is not included in the Discomycetes in the work 

 quoted. 



