HYPOCREALES 



255 



forms, these fertile parts have bizarre forms. Thus, in the Brazilian C. 

 thyrsoides, the perithecia are obliquely imbedded in the rind so that the 

 rind hugs each perithecium, thus forming cone-like structures in which 

 the individual perithecia are like the cone scales (Fig. 170). In the 

 Brazilian C. Volkiana, on lamellicorn larvae, there are formed from the 

 bright yellow fructifications (in addition to the clavate perithecial 

 heads) subulate or echinate processes on which the hyphae abstrict 

 numerous hyaline conidia. This conidial formation gradually extends 

 over the rest of the fructification, thus on C. Volkiana as on no other 

 species of Cordyceps, the conidia and perithecia are formed on the same 

 stroma. 



Fig. 171. — Cordyceps Volkiana. Habit, on lamellicorn beetle larvae. 



size; after M oiler, 1901.) 



(About natural 



With this peculiar form (Fig. 171), we conclude the third group of the 

 Scolecosporeae and the Hypocreales. The phylogenetic significance 

 of the Hypocreales lies in three different fields: imperfect forms, perfect 

 forms and sexual organs. 



The imperfect forms morphologically belong to the same types as the 

 Plectascales; they unite into fructifications to a higher degree, however, 

 and undergo a many-sided development which in the parasitic species 

 ends in stromatic forms {Tuber cularia and Sphacelia types), in coremia 

 {Sphaerostilbe group) and in pycnia (Polystigma and some species of 

 Nectria), and in the saprophytic forms leads to structures {e.g., in the 

 Isaria group) which are equal in beauty to the perfect forms. 



Also the perithecia show the same sort of structure as in the' Plecta- 

 scales and Perisporiales; they unite, however, in a higher degree to 

 stromatic complexes and as such undergo special development to new 

 aggregate fructifications, which gradually differentiate into fertile and 



