1915] 



ATKINSON PHYLOGENY IN THE ASCOMYCETES 



325 



tion to the copulation of the archicarp with free conidia. The 

 situation in Collema pulposum (Bachmann, '13), Ascobolus 



carhonarius (Dodge, 

 (Thaxter, '96), is sim- 

 ilar where the tricho- 

 gyne copulates with 

 spermatia (conidia) still 

 attached to the sperma- 

 tiophore. These cases 

 are very strong evidence 

 suggesting the homology 

 of conidia (or pycno- 

 spores as the case may 

 be) and spermatia^ in 

 the Ascomycetes. 



Progression in the di- 

 rection of multiplication 

 of antheridia, or sper- 

 matiophores, and their 

 association in groups 

 followed from the sim- 

 ple and more or less 

 isolated situation, pro- 

 gressing along the same 

 course which is recog- 



and Zodiomyces vorticellarius 



Fig. 3. Monascus, showing development of 

 sexual organs and fruit, an, antheridium ; ar, 

 archicarp; tr, trichogyne; asc, ascogonium; 

 con, conidium with which trichogyne is cop- 

 ulating; A.h, ascus hooks or croziers; B, young 

 fruit showing ascogenous hyphae within, at left 

 is a very young fruit body showing ascogonium 

 becoming surrounded by the enveloping fila- 

 ments; C, mature fruit body with asci and 

 ascospores. — ^Upper row of figures after Barker; 

 lower group after Schikorra. 



nized in the association 

 and massing of conidiophores into bundles, cushions, or 

 pycnidia. It is the same course which is universally recog- 

 nized as a striking indication of progression in other groups 

 of plants, a cepJialization of fruiting or reproductive struc- 

 tures, as in the bryophytes, lycopods, conifers, and angio- 

 sperms. In the latter it has given us the flower, and further 

 cephalization of the flower has resulted in the head of the com- 



^ Their function in the ancestral or early forms may have been generalized 

 enough to permit of their performing as conidia or sperms, as in the case of 

 Ectocarpus, Prostosiphon, Vlothrix, etc. Strasburger ('05, p. 25) has expressed 

 the idea that the pycnospores of the Ascomycetes might have been spermatia, 

 and that the process of fructification now presented by these fungi is a secondary 

 adaptation in place of the erstwhile fertilization by spermatia. 



