158 DopGe: RELATIONSHIPS OF FLORIDEAE AND ASCOMYCETES 
existed just previous to the inauguration of the habit of conjugate 
nuclear division which leads to the fusion of the nuclei in the 
ascus of such Ascomycetes as Galactinia, Acetabula, and Pyronema 
according to Claussen (26). 
The question as to the relationship of the outgrowths of the 
fertilized egg, ascogenous hyphae, in the Ascomycetes and odblas- 
tema filaments in the red algae is fundamental for the understanding 
of the phylogeny of the two groups, and it is a question that has 
been much neglected. It is a conspicuous and well-established 
fact that it is an essential character of the eggs in both groups to 
give rise to more or less complex filamentous outgrowths immedi- 
ately after fertilization. De Bary (5), although he suspected from 
what he knew of the mildews that the ascus must in all cases be 
an outgrowth of the fertilized egg, was unable to trace the connec- 
tion in Pyronema. Kihlman (57) succeeded in making out this 
connection and it was thus established that the asci are regularly 
the end members of outgrowths of the odgonium, although Brefeld, 
in spite of the fact that all subsequent investigations based upon 
the careful use of microtome sections proved the contrary, con- 
tinued to insist that the asci might arise from the same hyphae 
as the paraphyses. Curiously enough Blackman and Welsford 
(12) notwithstanding the abundant evidence to the contrary in 
other cases, and the fact that they find a well-developed ascogonium 
at the origin of the ascocarp, arrive at the conclusion that in 
Polystigma the asci do actually arise from the vegetative hyphae. 
Fisch (41) recognized the difference between the purely vegetative 
clusters of hyphae which penetrate the stomata and the tricho- 
gynes which are found surrounded by these “respiratory hyphae” 
(Fic. 1, D). The trichogyne could be distinguished on account 
of its size and the characteristic changes occurring in it on the 
application of reagents. Blackman and Welsford (12) have 
recently reinvestigated this species and are unable to discover that 
the ascogonium ever develops a trichogyne which grows outward 
through a stoma, although they figure a trichogyne-like hypha 
directed outward toward a stoma. They suspect that the tricho- 
gyne described by Fisch was merely one of the vegetative hyphae 
crowding through the stoma just as they do in Gnomonia, where 
Brooks (17) calls them trichogynes that are now sexually function- 
