134] The Classification of Lower Organisms 



Family Microthyriacea [Microthyriaceae] Lindau (in Engler and Prantl, 1897). 

 Parasitic on plants, surfaces of the fruits marked by radiating ridges. 



Family Micropeltidacea [Micropeltidaceae] Clements and Shear (1931). Family 

 Hemisphaeriaceae Theissen (1913), not based on a generic name. Like the fore- 

 going, but the surface of the fruit not radiate or radiate only at the margin. 



Family Trichothyriacea [Trichothyriaceae] Theissen and Sydow. Parasitic on 

 inophytes, the mycelium a pseudoparenchymatous layer, asci pendant within the 

 fruits from the apparent summit. 



b. Fruits elongate, hard, dark, opening by a narrow cleft (suborder Hysteruneae 

 Engler). 



Family Hysteriacea [Hysteriaceae] Saccardo Sylloge 2: 721 (1883). Parasitic on 

 higher plants or saprophytic. 



Family Graphidiacea [Graphidiaceae] Clements (1909). An enormous group of 

 lichens or parasites on lichens, largely tropical and chiefly crustose, the openings 

 of the fruits forming dark lines. 



c. Fruits not as above, mostly with a roundish area of asci exposed by the 

 irregular or stellate shattering of a superficial layer; if long and narrow, not 

 hard and dark (Suborder PHACiDnNEAE Engler). 



Family Phacidiea [Phacidieae] Saccardo Sylloge 8: 705 (1889). Phacidiaceae 

 Saccardo (1889). Family Phacidiaceae Lindau (in Engler and Prantl, 1896). The 

 dark fruits thin and weak laterally and below. 



Family Tryblidacea [Tryblidaceae] Rehm (in Rabenhorst, 1896). The dark fruits 

 hard and thick laterally and below. 



Family Stictea [Sticteae] Saccardo Sylloge 8: 647 (1889). Stictaceae Saccardo 

 (1889). Family Stictidaceae Lindau (1896). Fruits light-colored or white. Higgins 

 (1914) found that the agents of the shot-hole disease of plums and cherries, which, 

 on the basis of non-fruiting stages, have been called Cylindrosporium Pruni, produce 

 on fallen leaves ascocarps distinguishable as three species of the genus Coccomyces 

 of the present family. 



Order 5. Cupulata [Cupulati] Fries Syst. Myc. 1 : 2 (1821 ). 



Order Mitrati Fries 1. c; order Uterini Fries op. cit. 1 : liii (1832). 



Family Discomycetes Fries Epicrisis 1 (1836). 



Orders Discomycetes and Tuberaceae Winter in Rabenhorst Kryptog.-Fl. 



Deutschland 1, Abt. 2: 3 (1887). 

 Suborders Helevellincae, Pczizineae, and Tuherineae Engler in Engler and 



Prantl Nat. Pflanzenfam. I Teil, Abt. 1: v (1897). 

 Orders Helevellincae, Pezizineae, and Tuberineae Campbell Univ. Textb. Bot. 



166, 167, 168 (1902). 



Orders Pezizales, Discolichcnes, Helvellales, and Tuberales Bessey in Univ. 



Nebraska Studies 7: 299, 300, 303, 304 (1907). 



This order includes primarily the cup fungi, the inophytes which produce cup- 



or disk-shaped fruits bearing a single hiyer of closely packed asci on the inner or 



upper surface. There has been much study of some of them, notably of Pyronema, by 



Harper, Dangeard, Claussen, and Brown. The disk-shaped flesh-colored apothecia of 



Pyronema, 1-3 mm. in diameter, are found particularly on damp charcoal. The 



mycelium produces difTcrentiatcd multinucleate antheridia and ascogonia, the latter 



bearing one-celled multinucleate trichogynes. After syngamy, or sometimes without 



it, but always to the best of our knowledge without any fusion of nuclei, the ascogonia 



