108 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



give a continuous output in the manner of the carposporangia of 

 Polysiphonia from a sporophyte-soma, which, similarly, no longer 



presents any discernible differentiation of tissues or parts, but merely 

 passes on into the crop of asexual spores retained for the dispersal 

 function the food-supplies provided by the gametopbyte — in this case 

 itself a mere go-between for the nutriment taken directly from the 

 host. Admitting the Ascomycete-nature of these organisms, so far 

 as the so-called ascus may be any real guide to pbyletic descent, the 

 first striking feature of the group is the total lack of mycelial 

 organization in terms of the familiar fungus-hyplue. The plants, 

 absorbing from animal hosts with considerable nitrogenous waste, show 

 little polysaccharide, and their cell-m«mbranes are preponderatingly 

 'chitinous,' as those of the insect 1 . But though wholly destitute 

 of the hyphae of more massive fungi associated with the skeletal 

 tissues of their algal prototypes, the Laboulbenias, on the other hand, 

 retain a filamentous organization, which is not only the obvious 

 vestigial expression of the original filamentous ranialia the sapro- 

 phytic Ascomycetes have lost, but it is pre-eminently that charac- 

 teristic of modern Florideae 2 ; being based, that is to say, on uniscriate 

 filaments of cells with single nuclei and the familiar primary 

 4 Floridean pits,' together with similar general formation of plasmic 

 connections by ' secondary pits ' 3 . Growth of the filaments may be 

 both apical and intercalary *, and ramification is often beautifully 

 precise 5 ; unilateral or bilateral, in the manner of Calliih amnion 

 and Antithamnion, or Sphacelaria 6 ; subdichotomous tufted svstems 

 of ramuli 7 , and beautifully bilateral frond-expressions 8 , in all the 

 familiar constructions of the elementary filamentous soma of the 

 benthic phase of the sea, recalling in individual casts the habit of 

 smaller Callithamnions, Antithainnions, the apices of Ceramiums 9 

 and the characteristic symmetrical schemes of segmentation of Deles- 

 seria 10 . In other cases multiseptation to more massive axes obtains 

 to an extent which recalls the simpler forms and juvenile phases of 

 the Phseophyce* 11 . In fact, Thaxter' s figures seen with the eve of 

 an algologist, rather than that of a mycologist, become a compendium 

 of diminutive algal forms ; the limit being reached possibly in the 

 wonderful Zodiomyces vorticellaris ] '~, with unmistakably the multi- 

 septate pseudo-parenchymatous main axis and the fringed funnel of 

 the young Zanardinia 13 , or a replica of juvenile phases of Cutleria 



1 Also taking the material giving the debris-pigments of the insect-membranes 

 where these are available. 



2 Thaxter, loc. cit. ; for Chantransia-iorms cf. tt. 14, 15, 16, 5.3, 55. 



3 Thaxter, loc. cit.; t. 2, figs. 16, 17 : Faull (1912) Ann. Bot. 



4 Thaxter (1908) p. 224. 



5 Loc. cit. tt. 12, 18, 39 Herpomyces, 44 Rhacomyces. 



6 Loc. cit. tt. 4 Enarthromyces, 12 Rliacomi/ces, 29 Dimeromyces. 

 ' Loc. cit. (1908) tt. 64, 65. 



8 Loc. cit. Dichomyces, tt. 30, 32. 33 ; (1896), t. 8. 



9 Loc. cit. t. 20. 



10 Loc. cit. t. 8, Dichomyces, tt. 30-33. 



11 Ceratomyces mirabiUs, t. 24 ; tt. 68, 69, 70. 



15 t. 23 (1896) p. 372, a more definitely aquatic form, 1 mm. 

 13 Yamanouchi (1913) Bot. Gazette. 56, p. 28. 



