Phylum Inophyta [ 125 



the mechanism of discharge. The conidiophore ends in a columella projecting into 

 the base of the conidium. The columella develops a double wall. Increasing pressure 

 within the conidium causes a sudden eversion of the wall on the side of the conidium, 

 and this movement throws the conidium forth to a distance of perhaps 1 mm. Coni- 

 dia which come down on unfavorable substrata may form and discharge secondary 

 conidia. 



Adjacent cells may conjugate, the thick-walled zygote forming either in one of 

 them or as an outgrowth from one of them. Many examples produce thick-walled 

 resting spores without conjugation. 



Olive (1906) described the nuclei and the process of mitosis in Empusa. The 

 resting nuclei are fairly large, 7-9 [I in diameter. In the course of division, two stain- 

 resistant granules are seen, with strands of chromatin radiating from them. These 

 move apart, while the nucleus becomes dumb-bell shaped. The nuclear membrane 

 remains intact and division is completed by its constriction. As Olive remarked, the 

 process is much as in Euglena. 



Entomophthora, Empusa, and Massospora attack insects; the first produces zygotes, 

 while the other two produce asexual resting spores; Massospora does not discharge 

 the conidia violently. Conidiobolus and Delacroixia are saprophytic. Completoria 

 attacks the prothallia of ferns. Ancylistes, a parasite in the green alga Closterium, 

 was formerly included among chytrids or Oomycetes. Berdan (1938) showed that it 

 belongs here; it produces conidia and zygotes quite of the character of the present 

 group, and does not produce zoospores. 



Family 2. Basidiobolacea [Basidiobolaceae] Engler and Gilg Syllab. ed. 9 u. 10: 

 45 (1924). Basidiobolus ranarum Eidam (1886) occurs in the intestinal contents of 

 frogs and toads as uninucleate cells, solitary or in brief filaments, walled with cellu- 

 lose. In manure the filaments develop into a scant branching mycelium. The proto- 

 plasm gathers in the ends of erect hyphae which are cut off as conidia and discharged. 

 Conjugation occurs between adjacent cells of a filament. It is preceded by a single 

 nuclear division in each gamete (Fairchild, 1897). In this process, the nuclear mem- 

 brane disappears and the numerous minute chromosomes are found in a blunt-ended 

 spindle without centrosomes. Each gamete form a papilla; one of the two nuclei 

 enters the papilla, whose contents, after being cut oft by a wall, die and disappear. 

 The gametes and their nuclei unite and the zygote secretes a thick wall. 



Class 2. ASCOMYCETES (Sachs ex Bennett and Thistleton-Dyer) 



Winter 



Order .4jco5porgag Cohn in Hedwigia 11: 17 (1872). 



Ascomyceten Sachs Lehrb. Bot. ed. 4: 249 (1874). 



AscoMYCETES Bennett and Thistleton-Dyer in Sachs Textb. Bot. English ed. 847 

 (1875). 



Class AscoMYCETES Winter in Rabenhorst Kryptog.-Fl. Deutschland 1, Abt. 1 : 32 

 (1879). 



Class Ascosporeae Bessey in Univ. Nebraska Studies 7: 295 (1907). 



Class Ascomycetae Schaffner in Ohio Naturalist 9: 449 (1909). 



Inophyta which produce, as a feature of the sexual cycle, sporangia called asci, in 

 which the spores, called ascospores, typically eight in number, are delimited by the 

 manner of cell division called free cell formation, i.e., in such fashion as to exclude 

 a part of the cytoplasm. 



