SEXUAL REPRODUCTION OF THALLOPHYTES, 821 
The peculiar mode of development of the “‘ cortex ” of the 
stem of Chara is also a matter in which a comparison may 
be made with some of the Floridee, such as Ceramium.' 
Turning now to the series of fungoid forms we find a con- 
siderable number of which the sexual reproduction in its 
main points agrees with that of the Mloridee. 
AscomycETES.—Erysiphee.—This group, although not 
the earliest to be investigated, supplies us with the least 
complicated case of a sporocarp. In Podosphera, in which 
its development was described by De Bary in 1870, the car- 
pogonium and antheridium are both unicellular. After 
fertilization the carpogonium divides into two cells, the upper 
of which produces spores in its interior, and so may be re- 
garded as anascus ; the pericarp is formed of short filaments 
which branch out below its pedicle. 
Baranetski® has described under the name of Gymnoascus 
a fungus found on horse and sheep dung, which is probably a 
reduced rather than a simpler form of such a type as Podo- 
sphera. The carpogonium and antheridium closely resemble 
one another, but after fertilization the carpogonium divides into 
a number of cells, which grow out into filaments producing 
asci at their extremities. ‘There is only an indication of the 
formation of a pericarp. 
Amongst the Erysiphee must also be placed Aspergillus, 
the sporocarp of which has been described as a distinct genus 
under the name of Eurotiwm. 
Discomycetes.—The sexual reproduction of the larger fungi 
was first observed by De Bary amongst the members of this 
' The taxonomic migrations of Chara have been most remarkable. 
Linneus originally placed it in his group of Alye@, the contents of which, 
however, were in many respects heterogeneous. In the twelfth edition of 
his ‘ Systema’ he transferred it to flowering plants (‘‘ ad mentem Scheberi,” 
as Hedwig tells us, ‘Theor. Gen.,’ p. 125). It has been referred to Waia- 
dacee by Jussieu and De Candolle, and to Hydrocharacee by Brown. 
Richard (1815) established it as a separate order. Agardh referred it to 
Confervacee. Endlicher and Lindley associated it with other Alye (see 
Lindley, ‘ Veg. Kingd.,’ 3rd ed., p. 26). Latterly it has been rather the 
fashion to regard Characee as an independent or problematic intermediate 
group, standing between Thallophytes and Cormophytes. This was the 
view taken by Schleiden and by Sachs up to the fourth edition of his 
‘ Lehrbuch.’ 
The contemporaries of Linneeus were acquainted with the reproductive 
structures of Chara. Correa de Serra (1796) thought that the pollen eon- 
sisted of mucus, and was conveyed to the germen by a kind of eireula- 
tion. Bischoff (1828) discovered tha antherozoids, and Thuret (1840) 
observed the cilia upon them, this being also their first discovery on the 
antherozoids of any plant. 
2 «Beitr. z. Morph. u. Physiol. d. Pilze,’ dritte Reihe. 
3 * Bot. Zeit,” 1872: 
