A NEW FAMILY OF FUNGI. 



121 



form and structure presented by these minute organisms is 

 remarkable, but the point of greatest interest is the sexual mode 

 of reproduction, which in all important features agrees with 

 that met with in the Florideae or red sea-weeds. The female organ 

 is furnished with a slender projecting thread, or trichogyne, to 

 which the immotile antheridia are conveyed by water. After 

 fertilisation is effected the carpogenic cell gives origin to asci, 

 enclosing spores, as in other ascigerous fungi. A second ]3oint 



Comjisomyces veHicillaUis Thaxt. a. Ascophore. h. Trichogyne. c. An- 

 theridial branches. d. Point of attachment to host. Highly 

 (After Thaxter). 



magnified. 



of agi-eement between the Florideae and the Laboulbeniaceae 

 is the very distinctly marked continuity of protoplasm between 

 adjacent cells. This unbroken continuity of protoplasm is 

 general throughout the vegetable kingdom, but is often very 

 difhcult to demonstrate, and is nowhere so conspicuous as in the 

 two families enumerated above. 



Some of the species of the Laboulbeniaceae bear male and 

 female organs on the same individual, and in such instances 

 self-fertilisation takes place. Others again are unisexual, and 



