DopGE: RELATIONSHIPS OF FLORIDEAE AND ASCOMYCETEsS 179 
ascocarps are in their younger stages more or less closed structures. 
Practically all authors have made the characters of the ascocarp 
the basis for subdividing the group, though E. A. Bessey (11) 
accepts the results of Miss Bachmann’s work as further evidence 
of the possible primitive character of Collema, and C. E. Bessey 
(10) has rearranged his classification of the Ascomycetes placing 
the “Discolichens”’ with the Laboulbeniales as transition groups 
connecting the Ascomycetes and the red algae. 
Persoon (71) distinguished between angiocarpous and gymno- 
carpous forms of fungi. Mucor, Scleroderma, Thelebolus, and 
Tuber are “Angiocarpi,”’ and Phallus, Agaricus, Boletus, Hel- 
vella, Ascobolus, and Tremella are ‘‘Gymnocarpi.”’ Fries (47, 48) 
distinguished between the Pyrenomycetes and Discomycetes by 
the characters of the hymenial layer and the form of the mature 
fruit. He did not concern himself with the morphology and 
development of the early stages of the ascocarp as did De Bary 
(6) who realized that many Discomycetes have entirely closed 
fruit bodies in their younger stages. Ascobolus furfuraceus is 
the familiar example of this sort of ascocarp (FIG. 9, B). De Bary 
emphasized the fact that the form of the mature fruit is not a 
final proof of relationship. The gymnocarpous forms may become 
cleistocarpous or vice versa. De Bary was uncertain whether the 
primitive Ascomycetes had closed or open ascocarps and did not 
regard the method of development in Ascobolus as proof of the 
primitive character of the cleistocarp. 
Brefeld (16) held that all ascocarps are cleistocarpous in their 
youngest stages. Schroeter (82) divided the Ascomycetes into 
three groups accordingly as they are gymnocarpous from the 
first, Pyronema, Helvella, etc.; or first closed, then later opening 
up, Pezizaceae in general; and third, the more or less perma- 
nently closed Pyrenomycetes. In recent years more attention 
has been paid to the actual form of the youngest obtainable 
fruits. Fischer (42) and Bucholtz (22-24) have studied a number 
of the Tuberineae and find that in many cases the hymenium is 
at first exposed and only later becomes closed over by the — 
of the peridium. 
Dittrich (35) and Durand (38) find that certain Helvellineae 
are cleistocarpous at the time the hymenium is being organized. 
