DopGE: RELATIONSHIPS OF FLORIDEAE AND ASCOMYCETES 195 
Ascomycetes we have the greatest variation in the relative devel- 
opment of the ascogenous hyphae. 
It is of course of vital importance to determine where the 
spermatium nucleus unites with the egg, in view of the fusions 
between the cells of ascogonia followed by many nuclear divi- 
sions such as Miss Bachmann observed. Each of the several 
fused cells gives rise to ascogenous hyphae (FIG. 9). One sexual 
act has served to fertilize several cells, exactly as in Dudresnaya the 
fertilization of a single egg ultimately leads to the production of 
several masses of carpospores. 
The hypothetical cases described by Schmitz to provide for 
possible variations in the reproductive processes which might 
later be discovered are suggestive. He imagined that the “‘second 
sexual act”” might by degeneration disappear entirely, leaving 
conditions just what they are in the primitive forms like Nemalion. 
In case of a failure in the first sexual act due to non-development of 
spermatia Schmitz conceived that the spermatium mother-cell 
might grow out into a branched or unbranched male hypha which 
could perhaps fertilize the auxiliary cell (cf. Sachs’ figure of 
Ascobolus furfuraceus). In such cases the carpogonium in time 
would probably not develop a trichogyne and might even tend 
todisappear. Incase the spermatium mother-cell were not formed 
the carpogonium itself might grow out directly into male hyphae 
which could bring about the same end result, the fusion with 
the auxiliary cell, which might be either an end cell (Dudresnaya 
purpurifera) or an intercalary cell (D. coccinea). Schmitz saw a 
similarity between the Collemaceae and the Cryptonemiaceae 
but believed that reduction had in some cases already occurred to 
the extent that the spermatia were no longer developed. In 
other cases the first sexual act has been entirely suppressed, the 
second only functioning. This case would correspond to that of 
the Exoascaceae as we know them. Having in mind the scolecite 
or ascogone of Ascobolus and Lasiobolus with the curiously 
branched hypha, the pollinodium, coiling about its upper end as 
described by Woronin, Borzi, and Janczewski, Schmitz conceived 
the ascogenous cell, “‘the mother-cell of the ascogenous hyphae,” 
to be homologous with the auxiliary cell in the Cryptonemiaceae 
which is fertilized by the ‘‘second sexual act.” Reduction in other 
