General Features 



members of this genus, grows on burnt ground and up to that 

 time had not been studied morphologically by any American 

 student. In fact the species is so obscure that it had been 

 rarely collected. The reproductive process as described by 

 Dodge is as follows: The mycelium of this species produces a 

 large number of conidia. Some of these conidia while still 

 attached to the mycelium germinate and give rise immediately 

 to an archicarp which consists of a coil of swollen cells (Fig. 4) 

 twenty to forty in number, growing larger then smaller in size 

 as they extend outward, finally tapering off into a multicellular 

 trichogyne which entwines itself about an antheridial conidium 

 similar in appearance to the one from which the archicarp 



Fig. 5. Sex organs in Ascoholiis magnificus. a, antheridial branch, b, 

 archicarp branch, c, ascogonium showing the beginning of the ascogenous 

 hyphae. Figs. 4 and 5, after Dodge. 



originated. While these are regarded as sex organs, and probably 

 justifiably so, there is no definite proof that the multicellular 

 trichogyne actually fuses with the antheridial conidium and no 

 cytological details to show that these structures function as sex 

 organs. About three cells of the archicarp nearest the stalk 

 cell enlarge, the second cell of which produces the ascogenous 

 hyphae and is regarded as the ascogonium. 



Dodge has also made some interesting observations on 

 Ascoholus magnificus, a species w^hich he himself has described. 

 This species was kept under observation for a long period in 

 the laboratory. According to his report, the apothecia originate 

 from club-shaped bodies which are produced in numbers through- 

 out the colony, often in pairs. The bodies are at first one- 



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