390 



COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGY OF FUNGI 



Against this interpretation two objections may be raised, one on the basis of 

 Thaxteriola and Endosporella, and then on the basis of Stigmatomyces Sarcophagae. 

 Thaxteriola and Endosporella (Fig. 262, 2 to 4) are two entomogenous imperfect genera 

 which superficially resemble the male plants of the Laboulbeniales and undoubtedly 

 may be regarded as such. If the spores formed by them are spermatia, one must 

 assume that these in some mystical manner reach a distant, still unknown female plant. 

 It is more reasonable to regard them as conidia and their mother plants as imperfects, 

 thus explaining their isolated growth. 



The relationships in Stigmatomyces Sarcophagae are similar. There we have 

 normally male plants with "antheridia" and female plants with ascogonia. Besides, 

 the same "antheridia" also occur on female plants. It is not feasible to consider 

 the male plants as reduced and their generation as a cause of androgyny, for their 

 antheridia are morphologically and functionally equivalent to those on monoeci- 

 ous plants. It seems much simpler to assume that the supposed antheridia are 

 conidiophores. 



Fig. 262. — 1. Amphoromorpha blattina. Mature plant on the antenna of a Blattidae. 

 2. Thaxteriola nigromarginata. 3, 4. Endosporella Diopsidis. Young and mature individ- 

 ual. (X 600; after Thaxter, 1920.) 



Thus these conidiophores belong to the same type which we have described for 

 Thielavia and Pyxidiophora. In all the antheridia for which we at present have no 

 direct parallel in the Ascomycetes, their formation from single cell may always be 

 referred to meristogenous pycnia, such as we have shown in Teichospora salicina 

 (Fig. 177). The smallness of all these objects may be connected with the general 

 degeneration of the Laboulbeniales in which occasionally all that remains of the 

 thallus is the two basal cells. If the conidia should prove to be no longer capable of 

 germination, they would be morphologically similar to the microconodia of the 

 Sphaeriales and Phragmobasidiomycetes. 



According to this conception, the Laboulbeniales would have a position in the 

 Pyrenomycetes like that of the Uredinales in the Phragmobasidiomycetes. Most 

 would have had a dioecious sexual differentiation; the male individuals bore antheridia 

 such as are still present in the Plectascales; the female bore ascogonia such as we still 



