HOTSON. — CULTURE STUDIES OF FUNGI. 229 



but in a few instances, in which their association with other and more 

 definite types has been reported, they have been included under the 

 generic name applied to the latter as, for example, Dendryphium or 

 Haplotrichum. There seems to be little or no uniformity or agree- 

 ment among the writers on this subject, especially among the earlier 

 ones, regarding the morphological significance of bulbils. Preuss, 

 who was the first to describe bodies of this nature in 1851, considered 

 each bulbil a single compound spore and placed the genus Papulo- 

 spora, which he had created for their reception, in the " Bactridiaceae" 

 of Corda, a family not now recognized, which was established to 

 include fungi like Trichocladium Harz, bearing compound spores and 

 with prostrate fertile hyphae. On the other hand, Karsten ('65) re- 

 garded the bulbil-like bodies which were associated with his "Helico- 

 sporangium" as an ascus-producing structure, which was included by 

 him among the Erysipheae. Again, Eidam ('83) was of the opinion 

 that the two genera, Papulospora and Helicosporangium, occupied an 

 intermediate position between Ustilagineae and Erysipheae, while E. 

 Fischer is inclined to place them among the Monascaceae. De Bary, 

 in his "Morphology and Biology of Fungi," considers them briefly 

 and includes them in a category which he calls "Doubtful Ascomy- 

 cetes" and suggests that "the plants should be further investigated." 

 In considering these forms at a later period, Harz ('90) included all 

 structures of this nature then known under a new order, the " Lep- 

 toomycetes" and expressed the opinion that they are somewhat 

 closely related to the Oomycetes and coordinate with them and the 

 Zygomycetes. 



Inasmuch as these bulbils have received very little attention, our 

 knowle'dge of their morphology, development, and taxonomy is very 

 meagre. These forms are not as rare as has been generally supposed 

 but are, on the contrary, widely distributed and of common occur- 

 rence. Substrata which have produced bulbils have been obtained 

 from various parts of Canada and the United States; from Guatemala, 

 Mexico, and West Indies; from South America and Europe. Their 

 small size, the nature of the substratum on which they grow, and their 

 failure to form a conspicuous fructification in a majority of cases, 

 account to some extent for the fact that they are generally overlooked 

 in the field and in laboratory cultures. 



The results of the present investigation emphasize the fact, more 

 recently brought out by several mycologists, that these fungi do not 

 belong to any one of the Natural Orders, nor do they in any sense 

 form a group by themselves, but occur without regularity as imperfect 



