44 



MYCOLOGY 



from a green alga like Vaucheria. With our present knowledge, it is 

 impossible to name any one existing alga as the progenitor of a definite 

 fungous form, but we are safe in assuming in a general way that certain 

 phyla of fungi have been derived from certain phyla of algae, by the 

 loss of chlorophyll and in the loss of an independent existence. Another 

 view, which is open to argument, is that certain of the prototrophic 



Fig. 13. — Development of Mucor miicedo. a, b, c, d, Stages in the formation of 

 zygospore; /, sporangium; g, mature sporangiospores; h, one germinating. {After 

 Schneider, Pharmaceutical Bacteriology, p. 142.) 



filamentous bacteria to which attention has been previously called 

 have been the direct progenitors of certain of the filamentous fungi, 

 but on account of the character of the reproductive organs in the lower 

 true fungi their derivation from green algae is the more probable, and 

 mycologists even speak of the algal fungi referring especially to aquatic 

 genera, such as Saprolegnia, which like their algal ancestors not only 

 retain the general morphologic features of the algae, but also live in an 



