Spermogonia and the so-called Spermatia. i 7 



arranged circumferentially. Morphologically, they present 

 a great similarity to the spermogonia of the lichen-fungi, 

 especially to those of Collema. 



Since our knowledge of the life-history of the lichen- 

 fungi has been increased, from the facts added to it by 

 Schvvendener, De Bary, Stahl, and others, many botanists 

 have come to look upon the Uredine spermatia as fertiliz- 

 ing bodies, and to consider the ^cidiomycetes as being 

 nearly allied to the Ascomycetes. There are, however, 

 certain facts which cannot be overlooked. In the first 

 place, the faculty which the Uredine spermatia have of 

 multiplying themselves by budding in saccharine solutions 

 in exactly the same manner as the spores of Saccharomyces, 

 and also as Brefeld has shown the conidia of the Ustila- 

 gineae do in his ndhrldstmg, points rather to their being 

 conidia than spermatia. 



Then, again, it is not asserted that all spore-forms of 

 the Uredineae are sexual — this is claimed as probable for 

 the aecidiospores alone ; true it is that the aecidia are almost 

 always accompanied by spermogonia, but this is not in- 

 variably the case. De Bary * cultivated a single plant 

 of Sempervivum affected with Endophyllian sempervivi 

 which bore no spermogonia, but the secidial cups were 

 perfectly developed, and their spores germinated in the 

 normal manner. In the autumn of 1883, I transplan|;ed 

 into my garden a wild plant of Tragopogon pratensis 

 affected with the ^cidium. During the spring and 

 summer of 1884, this plant continued to produce a suc- 

 cession of aecidia, the spores from which were used for 

 infecting seedlings of Tragopogon. This they successfully 

 did, causing the development of the teleutospores, with 

 their scanty accompaniment of uredospores. I was never 

 able to find any spermogonia upon this Tragopogon, 



* De Bary, " Morphol. und Physiol.," ist edit. p. 169. 



C 



