SAPROMYCES 177 



origins appear, and then spores, irregular in shape and size, formed out 

 in the water) ; escaping thnnigh a terminal pore or not rarely through a 

 papilla; hiciliate, monoplanetic, shaped as in Sa{)roIcgiiia or Achlya, 

 8-1411 thick, normally about iojl. No oogonia or anthe'idia observed 

 in our form. 



Found only once by us and \.\\iingro\\\ng\\\X.h. Achlya and Saprolegnia 

 in a culture collected near Wilmington, N. C. (No. 3 of December 30, 

 1921, J. N. Couch). Reported hitherto in America only at York, Maine, 

 by Thaxter (Bot. Gaz. 19: 49, pi. 5- 1894) on cones and twigs of Piniis in 

 a spring. Otherwise recorded from Germany by Rcinsch on Visaini 

 stems and on algae (Jahr. f. wiss. Bot. 11: 298, pi. 15, figs, i-ii, 1878, 

 as Naegelia species I and species II), again from Luncl>urg, Germany, 

 by Minden on coniferous twigs ('12, p. 589, figs, iia and lib on p. 590), 

 and from Denmark by Petersen (Ann. iMyc. 8: 527. 1910). Minden 

 says that the plant was also found by Claussen. Thaxter found a strain 

 of this plant which bore sporangia luxuriantly but showed no indication 

 of any form of sexual reproduction. Later in the season he secured 

 additional specimens from the same spring, one of which furnished fine 

 examples of the curious oogonia and antheridia. Petersen also found 

 both sexual and sterile individuals, and he states that the sporangia 

 were more cylindrical in the sterile ones, suggesting that two species 

 may be involved. Thaxter considers both forms to be conditions of a 

 single species in which the sporangia are quite variable. There seems to 

 be little doubt that our plant is identical with the sexually sterile strain 

 of Thaxter and also that of Petersen. 



Thaxter describes the primary axis as originating "as a single basal 

 cell or segment which is attached by its roughened surface directly to 

 the substratum, without rhizoidal outgrowths. It is often more or less 

 bent and distorted but otherwise undifferentiated ..." This basal cell was 

 not obser\-ed in our original culture, but when the fungus was cultivated 

 in corn juice or pea juice the basal segment became ob\ious and was 

 seen to be slightly swollen and distorted. 



There are certain peculiarities in the discharge of the sporangia that 

 are worthy of comment. The contents of the sporangium may be com- 

 pletely formed into spores within the sporangium and the spores emerge 

 to swim away immediately upon gaining their exit (fig. 9), or the con- 

 tents of the sporangium may be discharged with the spores partly formed, 

 to complete their formation out in the water at the sporangial mouth 

 (fig. 12), or the sporangial contents may be discharged as an undifferen- 

 tiated naked mass of protoplasm, the spores forming outside (fig. 14). 

 All three methods of sporangial discharge may be taking place syn- 

 chronously in the same culture. If the spores emerge when they are only 

 partially differentiated a heavy precipitate is left on the walls of the spor- 



