CHAPTER V. — COMPARATIVE REVIEW. — ASCOMYCETES. 



243 



his Peziza benesuada (Fig. 115); similar organs occupy the margin of the platter- 

 shaped tube-bearing hymenia of Cenangium Frangulae, Tul. Small round cells 

 incapable of germination, which will be noticed again in a subsequent page, are 

 said by Brefeld 1 to be sometimes abscised from the ramifications of the paraphyses in 

 Peziza Sclerotiorum. 



The second place where these doubtful ' spermatia ' occur is in the pycnidia of 

 certain species, in which spores as well as spermatia are produced ; such species, 

 according to Tulasne, are Cenangium Fraxini, Tul., Dermatea carpinea, Fr., D. 

 Coryli, Tul., D. dissepta, Tul., where the spermatia-forming hyphae also occupy 

 chiefly the margin of the hymenium, also in D. amoena, Tul., Peziza arduen- 

 nensis and Aglaospora. 



Thirdly, small short-lived cells, which do not germinate and may be compared 

 with spermatia, are abscised in many species from filiform branchlets of the mycelium 

 and from the germ-tubes, or even directly from the germinating spores. 



Brefeld 2 found a multitude of such formations on the 

 mycelium of artificially grown plants of Peziza (Sclerotinia) 

 tuberosa. From short branches, often with tufts of branchlets 

 as in Penicillium, are abjointed successively and serially at the 

 extremities of their ramifications small cells, each containing 

 a small sphere of a highly refringent perhaps fatty substance, 

 and these are cemented together by a jelly and thus collected 

 in heaps on the parent-filaments. Tulasne 3 found just such 

 formations on the germ-tubes of the same species and on those 

 of Peziza bolaris and P. Durieuana when the spores were sown 

 in water. A similar phenomenon occurs sometimes on old 

 cultures of the mycelium of P. Sclerotiorum, as Brefeld states 

 and I can myself confirm ; but, as far as my experience goes, 

 only in isolated cases which cannot be more precisely defined. 

 I observed it also on the young germ-tubes of this species, 

 but only in a few and these poor and evidently weakly 

 plants. The small cells mentioned above which are abscised 



in the cups of P. Sclerotiorum are similar, according to Brefeld, to those which 

 we are now describing. The same formations appear also not unfrequently on 

 old luxuriant mycelia of P. Fuckeliana grown from ascospores in fruit-juice on a 

 microscopical slide (Fig. 116); and Zopf found quite similar structures, the narrowly 

 flask-shaped sterigmata, singly or in a tuft according to the luxuriance of the individual, 

 on the mycelium of species of Chaetomium, especially on starved specimens, and also 

 in species of Sordaria (S. curvula, S. minuta, S. decipiens), Woronin having seen them 

 before in S. coprophila. 



Small bodies of the kind here described sprout out directly from the cells of the 

 multicellular compound spores of Tulasne's 4 Peziza Cylichnium when sown in water. 



FIG. 115. From the hymenium of 

 Peziza benesuada, Tul. Ascus sur- 

 rounded by paraphyses which are 

 giving off spermatia by abscision. 

 After Tulasne. Highly magnified. 



1 Schimmelpilze, IV, p. 121. 



2 Schimmelpilze, IV, p. 113. 



:! Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 3, XX, p. 174, and Carpol. Ill, t. XXII. 

 ' Ann. d. sc. nat. ser 3, XX, and Carpologia, III, pp. 200, 202. 



R 2 



