240 PHYLUM VII. CARPOMYCETEAE 
(a) Look for Spot Fungi on the hosts mentioned above, and 
especially for the minute black fruits in the spots, making 
sections of the latter. 
(b) Look for Black-dot Fungi on leaves, fruits and twigs of 
many plants, especially for Colletotrichum on bean pods. 
(c) Look for Molds on leaves, as well as on some dead 
tissues. 
414. Summary for the Higher Fungi. The theory 
underlying the foregoing account of the Higher Fungi is 
that these plants have been derived from the Red Algae 
by modifications, mostly degradational, due to the change 
from a holophytic to a hysterophytic habit, accompanied 
by the equally significant change from aquatic to non- 
aquatic life. It is here considered probable that the 
earliest fungi were those known as “lichens,’’ which 
became parasitic upon small algae. In them the dom- 
inant modification was, of course, the disappearance of 
chlorophyll, and the reduction of the plant body. In 
the fruit resulting from the fertilization of the egg, the 
homologues of the carpospores of the Red Algae divided 
internally into spores, thus changing the carpospore 
into the ascus, and resulting in the considerable multi- 
plication of spores. Thus the asci and ascospores be- 
came characteristic structures in the fruits of the fungi, 
and gave name to the first class—A scosporeae. 
415. Later, in the subterranean fruits of the truffles 
another modification took place whereby the spores 
instead of remaining within the ascus, push out beyond 
the ascus wall, so as to be more easily dispersed. In 
this way the basidium with its basidiospores arose from 
the ascus and its ascospores. These are thus to be re- 
garded as homologous structures, in which the later- 
formed basidia have superior means for dispersing their 
spores. 
416. In like manner in the Brand Fungi we find 
