128 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



sometimes against it ; as the septa become fully formed, the particles 

 gather upon them, the number on a septum being eventually one to 

 seven and usually two to four ; they belong to the protoplasm and 

 are not thickenings of the cell- walls, as is shown by the fact that, 

 in a cell undergoing plasmolysis, they retire from the cell-wall in 

 the contracting plasma membrane. 



Highly refractive particles, like those of Lasiobolus pulcherrimus 

 and Ascophanus carneus, also occur in Ascodesmis nigricans, 1 Hel- 

 vetia elastica, 2 Ascobolus magnificus, 3 Pyronema confluens, and 

 doubtless in many other Discomycetes. Since they are such definite 

 structures, for convenience in reference they need a special name. 

 By Claussen, 4 Faull, 5 and others they have been referred to as 

 metachromatic bodies ; but, as this designation seems to me 

 to be an unsatisfactory one, I propose to call them Woronin 

 bodies. 



The Woronin bodies of Pyronema confluens (Figs. 63, B, 64, and 

 67, pp. 116, 118, and 131), like those of Ascophanus carneus, occur 

 sparsely scattered in the protoplasm filling the terminal cells of 

 elongating hyphae, and there they move about irregularly in the 

 manner described by Ternetz. In older cells they settle down in 

 the walls of the vacuoles and, while at rest in that position, they can 

 be readily studied with the microscope. They are not rounded 

 but elongated-oval in shape. When turning on their long axis, 

 they sometimes appear to become thicker or thinner, so that possibly 

 they are oval in cross-section. In any single cell, their number is 

 small — perhaps less than one dozen. While a few of them occur 



1 P. Claussen, " Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Ascomyceten. Boudiera," Bot. 

 Zeit., Jahrg. LXIII, 1905, p. 6 (his Boudiera was wrongly identified ; it was Asco- 

 desmis nigricans). 



2 W. A. McCubbin, " Development of the Helvellineae. I. Helvella elastica,'" 

 Botanical Gazette, Vol. XLIX, 1910, p. 198. 



3 B. O. Dodge, " Artificial Cultures of Ascobolus and Aleuria," Mycologia, 

 Vol. IV, 1912, Plate LXXII, Figs. 7-8. 



4 P. Claussen, loc. cit. 



5 J. H. Faull, " The Cytology of Laboulbenia chaetophora and L. Gyrinidarum," 

 Annuls of Botany, Vol. XXVI, 1912, p. 333. Faull found in these Laboulbeniaceae 

 " rather coarse, deeply staining granules (a brilliant red with Fleming's triple stain), 

 some of which are closely in contact with the ' Schliesshaut ' (Fig. 7)," and he adds 

 " these are probably the ' metachromatic ' granules observed by Claussen in the 

 mycelium of Ascodesmis and by McCubbin in Helvella." 



