236 



CLASS ASCOMYCETEAE 



numerous pairs of nuclei. No nuclear fusion occurs until in the young 

 asci which are formed by the hook method. (Fig. 82.) 



Family Cyttariaceae. The position of this family is not certain, 

 though it probably should be included in the Pezizales. It is not closely 

 related to any of the foregoing famihes. Apothecia numerous, imbedded 

 in a fleshy stroma produced externally on the twig of the host. Ascospores 

 one-celled, hyaline. One genus, Cyttaria, confined with its hosts (species 

 of Nothofagus, the Southern Beech) to the South Temperate Zone in 

 South America and Australasia. The fleshy stromata serve the natives 

 for food. The basal portion of the stroma of one or more species produces 

 organs resembling spermogonia wdth sperm cells. (Fig. 83.) 



Fig. 83. Pezizales, Family Cyttari- 

 aceae. Cyttaria gunnii Berk. (After Lindau, 

 in Engler and Prantl: Die Natlirlichen 

 Pflanzenfamilien, Leipzig, W. Engelmann.) 



Two genera of inoperculate Discomycetes from Sumatra described 

 by Boedijn (1934) perhaps indicate a transition to the Cyttariaceae. They 

 are J acobsonia on wood and Myriodiscus on bamboo stems. From a 

 plectenchymatic stroma there radiate in all directions closely packed, 

 branched stalks of apothecia forming a loose or dense ball respectively. 

 In Myriodiscus there are perhaps 800 to 1000 or more of these apothecia 

 which are rather gelatinous. The asci are cylindrical or obovoid and 

 multisporous. These spores are formed in this large number from the 

 beginning and are not the result of budding of a few original spores. 

 Judging from the illustration there must be several thousand of these 

 small ellipsoidal ascospores in a single ascus. In Jacohsonia, in which the 

 apothecial branches are not so tightly packed nor so numerous, the asci 

 are only eight-spored and the apothecia are subcoriaceous. 



Order Tuberales. The fungi of this order are all terrestrial and pro- 

 duce subterranean spore fruits (ascocarps). Some are probably sapro- 

 phytic but it seems possible that certain species are perhaps parasites 



