DopGE: RELATIONSHIPS OF FLORIDEAE AND ASCOMYCETES 177 
It is not impossible that in these secondary cell fusions we 
should seek for an explanation of the puzzling vegetative nuclear 
fusions in the ascus. The reported fusion between the end cell 
of the ascogenous hypha and the cell just below the ascus 
would perhaps serve the same purpose as would the fusion of the 
end cell of the odblastema filament with some other cell of the 
procarpic branch in case no auxiliary cell were available. Since 
Oltmanns (68) confirms Schmitz’s account as to the cell fusions 
in Dudresnaya and Gloiosiphonia the facts here may be taken 
as fairly well established. His further claim that the nucleus of 
the auxiliary cell in Dudresnaya, Callithamnion and Gloiosiphonia 
degenerates, as noted above, after having taken a position as 
far away as possible from the odblastema nucleus certainly needs 
further confirmation. ‘Oltmanns’ figures are quite diagrammatic 
and the successive stages in the disintegration of the vegetative 
auxiliary cell nucleus are not represented at all. The division 
stages also by which the fertilized egg nucleus is claimed to multi- 
ply and furnish daughter nuclei for further growth are not shown. 
It is to be remembered that the disintegration of a nucleus 
and the taking of its cytoplasm by another nucleus as claimed by 
Oltmanns is entirely without analogy elsewhere in connection 
with fertilization processes either in the plant or animal kingdom. 
We certainly need more evidence as to the nuclear phenomena 
occurring in connection with these secondary fertilizations of 
Schmitz and the possibility that we shall here find the explana- 
tion of the nuclear fusions in the ascus is surely worth considering. 
The obvious similarities between ascocarps and cystocarps 
have doubtless been the most common ground for assuming a 
relationship between the Ascomycetes and the Florideae. As 
noted above Schmitz did not consider the form of the mature 
cystocarp as having great phylogenetic significance. In each of 
the main divisions of the red algae as we now understand them we 
find considerable variation in the characters of the fruit body. 
In the Nemalion group for example we find all stages from the 
completely unprotected glomerulus of carpospores without sterile 
filaments (Fic. 6, A) up to well-formed cystocarps with surrounding 
‘Protecting hyphae. In Scinaia (Fic. 6, C) the cystocarp corre- 
sponds in form and method of development to a typical pyreno- 
