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DopcGE: METHODS OF CULTURE OF ASCOBOLACEAE 189 
surface and that such a character is quantitative rather than 
qualitative. He suggests that it is only by a more thorough 
knowledge of the initial organs of the ascocarp that a satisfactory 
classification of the Ascomycetes can be obtained. Such a basis 
for classification would require a vast amount of iny tig 
itis known that forms now widely separated have quite similar 
initial organs, and that in species now placed in the same genus 
these organs may be quite unlike. 
The archicarp of A scobolus carbonarius, with its long trichogyne 
conjugating with a conidium, is very suggestive of the conditions 
in the lichens. The trichogyne of the lichens, however, grows 
upwards through the tissues of the thallus until its tip becomes 
slightly protruded above the surface. The spermatia which are 
extruded from the spermogonia, are then in some way brought 
into contact with the tip of the trichogyne. It is probably true 
that many of the conidia arising from the mycelium of Asco- 
bolus carbonarius are asexual spores, but it is quite as clear that 
some of them are functionally equivalent to the spermatia of the 
lichens. The presence of only a limited number of male cells, 
and these permanently attached to their stalks, would favor 
the development of a trichogyne with a tendency to grow outward 
in @ very irregular fashion, thereby increasing their chances of 
reaching a male cell. In this similarity of the male cells to the 
ordinary vegetative reproductive cells we may have a step toward 
Such @ condition as is present in the rusts, where the sexual 
fusions occur between equal hyphal cells, and the spermatia 
have become functionless. 
On the basis of these facts I am inclined to favor the view that 
the Ascomycetes have originated from the red algae through forms 
the lichens, perhaps forms that have given rise to the lichens. 
Trichogynes and spermatia are found only in red algae and 
scomycetes, and the fungal element of the lichens represents 
— the essential features of each group. This would not 
ee naitate accepting the view that the apothecium is the most 
ri type of the ascocarp. The differences between the 
a the apothecium are not very fundamental; the 
: rom the one to the other is easily conceived, and is 
i... : 2 
dicated in the species of the lichens in which the fruit body is a 
Pyrenocarp, 
’ since 
