172 DopnGe: METHODS OF CULTURE OF ASCOBOLACEAE 
at first covered with coarse warts and can not well be described 
as reticulated until the spore walls have dried out and cracked 
around the borders of the warts. In this condition the spores 
are reticulated, the reticulations, however, are formed by the 
cracking of the epispore. The only other species growing on 
burned places likely to be confused with A. carbonarius is A. 
pusillus Boud. (1877). A. carbonarius may be found from May 
until November growing where quantities of wood have been 
burned. Places burned in the autumn are favorable for the growth 
of this species during May and June. 
As noted above, Boudier (1869) has given us a correct figure of 
a germinated spore of this species under the name A. viridis. 
Sometimes several germ tubes will arise from the middle of a 
spore instead of from near the end. The epispore is cracked 
in all directions, the smaller cracks running in between the warts 
and two or three larger cracks extending down to the endospore 
(FIG. 9, a). 
The germinated spore becomes an integral part of the vege- 
tative mycelium as was noted by De Bary (1884) for many 
Ascomycetes. Fic. 30 shows that the spore becomes a multi- 
nucleated cell, limited by the transverse septa formed beyond 
the points where the germ tubes emerged. Immature spores 
which germinated are shown in FIG. 31,0. 
When the spores are germinated in a decoction of heated soil, 
and the mycelium is allowed to grow for two or three days if 
this liquid, there frequently appear at intervals along the course 
of the hyphae, swellings or sporelike bodies (FIG. 9, b, d). Such 
a body is first formed at the end of a hypha but immediately sends 
out another hypha from the opposite side so that it appears to have 
been formed as an intercalary swelling. They are probably merely 
vesicles such as are very commonly found in artificial cultures of 
all sorts of fungi. 
About the third or fourth day one may look for the first 4P- 
pearance of a large number of spherical hyaline bodies arising 
at the extremities of straight narrow stalks, which are branches 
of the ordinary hyphae. They are borne singly, and as they are 
thin-walled and plainly function as spores they may be call 
conidia. These conidia are perfectly smooth and about 10 # in 
