92 



DIVISION I.— GENERAL MORPHOLOGY. 



upwards to a height of 1-2 cm., in Exoascus Pruni of 1 cm.; in the strongly 

 puffing Fungi, such as Peziza vesiculosa, P. Acetabulum, Helvella crispa, and As< o- 

 bolus furfuraceus, they are thrown to a distance of more than 7 cm., in Sordaria 

 fimiseda, according to Woronin, tiny travel 15 cm., in the smaller species of this genus 

 about 2 cm., in Rhytisma acerinum only a few millimetres. The movements in the 

 act of puffing in large hymenia were said by Desma/.ieres to produce an audible 

 sound, but this has been doubled by recent observers; I have myself however heard 

 a vny perceptible hissing noise produced by strong specimens of Peziza Acetabulum 

 and Helvella crispa. 



The peculiar features in the old genus Ascobolus (including Saccobolus and others), 

 which led to many false and even strange notions, are connected with the large size 

 of the asci, the great prominence above the surface of the hymenium at the period 

 of maturity, and the. regular periodicity in their ripening and in puffing 1 . Coemans 

 has given us a full account of how a number of asci ripen and eject their spores daily 



for several days together, when the hymenium has reached 

 a certain point of development. The asci in consequence 

 of their expansion begin to appear above the surface of the 

 hymenium towards evening and continue to do so till 

 the succeeding afternoon ; between 1 and 3 o'clock the 

 tension reaches its highest point, and the slighest shock 

 causes ejection which is simultaneous in all the projecting 

 asci. It is difficult to determine whether ejection takes 

 place when everything around is perfectly still. The still- 

 ness is in fact always broken by a number of younger asci 

 beginning to expand every afternoon in preparation for 

 ejection on the following day. It is natural to suppose that 

 there must be a direct relation between this regular daily 

 periodicity and the light-period, and Coemans found that 

 ejection w^as delayed 4-5 hours in the Ascoboli, when culti- 

 vated in darkness. Boudier and Zopf observed that the asci 



45. Ascobolus furfuraceus, V. . ... . . . 



• r a section through the h y - are to a high degree positively heuotropic when they are in 



■^JXX'. ', £ P^ess of expansion ; their curvatures towards the source of 



paraphyses p. a . \vA\\. may extend through nearly QO°, but these curvatures 



k—k, e a ° . . .. 



similar one which i its spores almost, if not quite, entirely disappear after ejection or 



within open lid at the apex. Magn. 'f the expansion is artificially stopped. 1 he connection 



193 times. 



between all these points requires more exact investi- 



gation. 



When the asci are ready to eject their spores they arc very much extended and 

 their broad club-shaped apex rises considerably above the surface of the hymenium; 

 this led to the erroneous idea which was reprodu< :ed by Boudier, that the asci became 

 detat lied from their point of insertion and wandered up between the paraphyses ; they 

 really remain (irmly attached, as in all the rest of the Discomycctes (Fig. 45). The 

 projecting asci moreover are distinctly visible to the naked eye in the larger species 

 as dark points, by reason of the dark violet-coloured spores in their apices. These 

 points disappear at the moment of dusting, because the spores fly off and the empty 

 tubes are drawn back beneath the surface of the hymenium. Older observers were 

 led by these appearances to the mistaken notion that the entire asci were ejected from 

 the hymenium, and hence the rmme Ascobolus. 



rouan in Ann. <]. sc. nat. ser. 4, VII 1857 . p. 175. — Coemans, Spicilege, I ( Hull. soc. hut. 

 I 1 Boudier in Ann. d. sc. nat. s^r. 5, X, p. 191 



