MONOBLEPHARIDALES 719 



Gonapodya polymorpha Thaxter 



Bot. Gaz., 20: 481, pi. 31, figs. 1 1-16. 1895 

 (Figs. 52, p. 712; 54 C, p. 738) 



Hyphae irregularly or more frequently dichotomously branched, more 

 or less uniformly divided into short-oval or irregular segments, the 

 segmented portion either arising directly from the substratum or, more 

 often, confined to tufts of branchlets borne subumbellately on the ends 

 of slender elongate hyphae in which the segmentation is indistinct or 

 obsolete, the segmentation frequently ill-defined or obsolete throughout 

 the whole vegetative body; sporangia variable in size and form, long- 

 oval, tapering rather abruptly to the blunt tip, terminal and solitary or 

 sometimes several arising from a single segment, once to many times 

 proliferous, the hyphae sometimes traversing and growing beyond the 

 empty sporangium; zoospores somewhat variable in size and number, 

 usually about 6-10 \i long by 7 \x in diameter; male and female game- 

 tangia terminal and solitary or several arising from a single segment, up 

 to three times proliferous, hyphae sometimes growing through and 

 beyond discharged gametangia; female gametangia subspherical to 

 short-ovoid, forming one to four discharge papillae, 20 60 by 1 5-25 [i, 

 female gametes variable in number, up to 16 (usually six to eight in a 

 gametangium, spherical, nonflagellate, 1 1-18 \i in diameter; male game- 

 tangia smaller than the female, short-elliptical to ovoid, forming a single, 

 terminal discharge papilla, 20 25 by 10-15 u, male gametes variable in 

 number, up to eighteen in a gametangium, posteriorly uniflagellate, 

 elliptical or somewhat cylindrical, with a conspicuous anterior cluster 

 of refractive granules, 7-9 by 3-5 a, flagellum 21-23 \x in length; zygote 

 retaining the flagellum of the male gamete, at first amoeboid, then 

 actively motile, posteriorly uniflagellate, ovoid, 16-25 by 10-15 \x, 

 encysting to form a smooth-walled, spherical resting spore, germina- 

 tion not observed. (Adapted in part from Johns and Benjamin, 1954.) 



On submerged fruits of various types, especially those of the Rosa- 

 ceae; submerged twigs of fir, spruce mucilage, and twigs of deciduous 

 trees. Thaxter (F ) (he. cit.), Sparrow (1932b: 290, pi. 7, fig. L; 1933b: 

 537, pi. 20, fig. 34; 1933c: 530), Matthews (1935: 309, pi. 63, figs. 1-3), 

 Beneke (1948: 30), Johns and Benjamin (1954: 201), Sparrow and Barr 



