General Features 287 



take place. Seaver drew his conclusions from j)rescrvcd material 

 in which there is a t(reat discrepancy between the size of the 

 ascostome and that of the sijores. But as I have shown such 

 material is materialh altered b\- contraction and swelling of the 

 ascus wall. The ascusporus which in living asci is just wide 

 enough for the passing of the spores shrinks considerably after 

 ejection." 



While Boedijn appears to differ with the writer in matters of 

 spore discharge, both his statements and figures, some of which 

 are here reproduced (Fig. 17), prove rather than disprove our 

 previous statements. Before the spore is discharged there is no 

 ascostome, but the original size of the ascostome is indicated 

 approximately by the diameter of the operculum or lid which is 

 usualh' left hanging at the lower side of the ascostome. Re- 

 ferring to Boedijn's own illustrations (Fk;. 17 f, g) it will be noted 

 that the operculum is scarcely half the diameter of the spore, and 

 in our own observations sometimes even less. Also (Fig. 17, g) 

 a spore is seen in the process of passing through the ascostome 

 which is already- stretched much beyond its original size, as indi- 

 cated by the attached operculum or lid. In this case the spore 

 is said to have been stuck in the ascostome. Why did it stick? 

 Because the ascostome was not large enough for the spore to 

 pass through without stretching, and there was not sutlficient 

 force behind the spore to complete the process. 



Boedijn claims that the ascus jet passes through the asco- 

 stome at once. So do the bullets from a machine gun pass out 

 in a continuous jet but there is an explosion behind each one. 

 The writer did not claim that there was a pause between each 

 spore ejection, as implied by Boedijn, but that there was an 

 expansion and contraction between each spore ejection, and this 

 must be true even though the spores pass out in a continuous 

 jet end to end. 



Even if we admit for the sake of argument that the ascostome 

 was originally as wide as the spore, but contracted after spore 

 ejection, we might ask when does it contract? Does it contract 

 after all the spores have been ejected, or after each spore ejec- 

 tion? Again Boedijn's own illustration (Fig. 17) proves that the 

 ascostome does contract before all the spores are ejected. If not, 

 why did the last spore (Fig. 17, g) stick in the ascostome? If 

 the ascostome contracted after the seventh spore why should it 

 not have contracted after each discharge? The fact that the 



