DopGE: RELATIONSHIPS OF FLORIDEAE AND ASCOMYCETES 173 
may have the same significance as the development of the egg out- 
growth and its fusion with the basal cell or cells of the procarpic 
branch in such forms as Harveyella, Dudresnaya coccinea (Fic. 5, E), 
Polyides, and Erythrophyllum (Fic. 4, C, D). This topic will be 
referred to further below. 
In Wrangelia (Zerlang, 98) the outgrowth from the carpo- 
gonium appears to be a sac-like structure connecting with the 
basal cell of the procarpic branch and forming the so-called central 
cell from which the sporogenous filaments arise. 
In many species of the red algae the lower cells of the procarpic. 
branch become involved in extensive cell fusions which follow 
fertilization. This is well shown by Twiss (91) for Erythrophyllum 
delesserioides which, as he points out, is one of the Gigartinaceae. 
The procarpic branch consists of seven or eight cells, the lower 
three of which are very large, considerably elongated and well 
nourished. Above these are three much smaller cells but of about 
the same shape, while the next cell is minute and triangular, and 
is connected with the carpogonium by a coiled slender portion. 
After fertilization, presumably, the odblastema filament grows out 
and connects with the lowest of the three large cells, which is the 
auxiliary cell (Fic. 4,C). Then occur the intimate fusion of all 
three cells and the giving off of gonimoblast filaments from all 
parts of this fusion cell (Fic. 4, D), very much as in the lichens 
(Fic. 7) and certain other Discomycetes (37, 44, 27), as just 
noted, where several cells of the ascogonium become connected by 
pores in the cross walls and ascogenous hyphae arise from the 
portions corresponding to each of the original cells. In Erythro- 
phyllum, Gigartina, and other members of the Gigartinaceae the 
sporogenous hyphae form an extensive branching system penetrat- 
ing the thallus so that a somewhat spherical swollen spore fruit 
is finally developed, perhaps corresponding to such an ascocarp 
as that of Penicillium. 
It is a striking and characteristic fact for both the Ascomycetes 
and red algae that in these cases the spore-bearing filaments should 
arise from several rather than one cell, and that these cells are 
connected by pores in the one case and odblastema filaments in 
the other. Ascogenous hyphae, gonimoblasts of the Batrachosper- 
mum type, odblastema filaments, and even those fusions between 
