42 SURVEY OF THE REPRODUCTIVE PROCESS 



Gasteromycetes and Hymenomycetes. In the first they 

 occur in beaded chains clustered at the ends of filaments ; 

 in the latter they are attached in groups of four to the 

 apices of elongated cells, termed hasidia. When the 

 spores are developed in the interior of cells, the latter — 

 which are termed asci or thecce — have generally the form of 

 elongated pods. They come to maturity at a later period 

 than the spermatia, and then contain a variable number of 

 spores — usually some power of two — arranged in linear 

 series. The presence of spores of this kind (ascospores, or 

 thecaspores) has long been recognized in one large tribe of 

 Fungi, hence called Ascomycetes ; but the researches of 

 Tulasne go to shew that they occur also in other divisions 

 of the order. In the large group of Coniomycetes, including 

 the smuts, and other such like epiphytic parasites, it has 

 been shown that many of those Fungi which produce naked 

 spores are but preliminary stages of species, which, in 

 another phase of development, form spermatia, and spores 

 contained in asci, or at least reducible to that type. Thus 

 the epiphytes, which go under the name of Uredo, are the 

 protomorphic or rudimentary forms of others, hitherto re- 

 ferred to distinct genera, as JEcidium, Phragmidium, Puc- 

 ci7iia, &c. Stilbospora in the same way appears to be a pre- 

 cursor of a form of Sphceria* Mr. Berkeley observes that 

 " it is quite certain that a large portion of the so-called species 

 of Plioma, Leptostroma, Diplodla, Hendersonia, Cytispora, 

 Septoria, &c. are mere cases of dualism ; and the same may, 

 without much chance of error, be predicated of those cases 



* Tulasne, Ann. Nat. Hist., 2d Ser., YIII., 114. Comptes Eend., Mar., 

 1851. Currey in PHlos. Transac. for 1857, p. 548. M. L. R. Tulasne, 

 along with many others, identifies also the following : — Ncemaspora 

 Rihis with Bpliceria Ehrenhergii, Micropera Drupacearuni with 8. Leo- 

 eillei, Asteroma Uhni with Dodithea Ulmi; and he remarks that in 

 Rhytisina every species may be said to have a precursor in a Melasmia 

 (a fungus with acrogenous spores), which play the same part here that 

 Cytispora and its analogues do in regard to the Sphcerias. 



