The Importance of Fungi in the Sea 303 



provided with slime sheaths or appendages effecting prolonged 

 floating in the water and later on causing the firm attachment 

 of the spores to the substrate. These processes are quite differently 

 shaped: there are cilia, tender spines, thorns, slimy caps of dif- 

 ferent length, tubes or collars (Fig. 1). The appendages are 

 sometimes rather complicated, for instance some of them may 

 be reversed and then form small funnel-shaped caps {Cerios- 

 poropsis cahjptrata Kohlm. and lialosphaeria inecliosetigera Cribb 

 et Cribb, see Fig. 1 c and e), or they may consist of fine fibers 

 embedded in a gelatinous mass {Remispora quadri-remis 

 (Hohnk) Kohlm. and R. stellata Kohlm.). Submicroscopical 

 investigations will certainly show further interesting structures 

 in spore appendages. 



Spores of Ascomycetes usually contain one or several big 

 oil drops in each cell and these serve as nutriment for germina- 

 tion and assist the spores to float (Fig. 1). After leaving the 

 fruiting body, the spores are able to germinate and to form long 

 genu tubes within a few hours (31, 32). 



Physiological Adaptation 



Besides morphological adaptation to life in water, many 

 marine fungi are also physiologically adapted to the sea. Utiliza- 

 tion of different nutiients has been studied with pure cultures 

 of only a few species thus far (2, 21, 24, 32, 40, 55). The num- 

 erous substrates used in these experiments cannot be mentioned 

 here, as they are of minor importance for the subject of adapta- 

 tion. The most interesting result of Barghoorn's (2) experiments 

 was the fact that his species were able to grow on media witli 

 concentrations of sodium chloride three times as high as sea 

 water. In most cases they developed better in substrates with 

 nomial sea water concentrations than they did on media made up 

 with fresh water. 



These results were confirmed by Gustafsson and Fries (21) 

 for one species, while the others grew in sea water solutions as 

 well as in media made up with distilled water. Likewise some 

 Deuteromycetes examined by Meyers and Reynolds (40) did 

 not show a difference of growth between substrates with sea- 

 water or distilled water. Mme. Nicot (42) isolated an imperfect 



