20G MONOGKArn of the laboulbexiace^. 
seen in Chitonomjcos (Plate XXYI) or Ilydroeomjces, both of which genera inhabit 
hosts tliut hve, for the most part, submerged, and which are rapid swimmers. Under 
these conditions of life the advantages of such a contrivance, to allow a certain free- 
dom of motion, arc sufliciently apparent. The same office of a fulcrum for the sup- 
port of the pcrithccium is efiected in some species of Ceratomjces by the conversion 
of a considerable portion of the receptacle into a foot-like organ (Plate XXIV, fig. 1). 
After bavin*'" become attached to the insect, and during, or sometimes before, the 
formation of a definite foot, the spore elongates more or less distinctly and becomes 
further divided by the formation of tranverse septa into a series of superposed cells, 
varying in number in the different species and genera, from the further development 
of which result the three fundamental parts of which these plants are usually com- 
posed : namely, a main body, the receptacle; one or more spore-producing portions, the 
po'ithccia ; and lastly, one or more appendages which, in the majority of cases, are asso- 
ciated with the formation of the male sexual organs. 
The Ucccptacle. The term *• receptacle " has been used to designate that portion of 
tife fungus on which the appendages, togetlier with the perithecia or their stalk-cells, 
are inserted ; but it is necessarily used with some looseness, and is sometimes unavoid- 
ably .applied to series of cells which are neither homologous in origin nor similarly 
related to the other essential organs of the plant. In the genus Laboulbenia, for 
example, the whole body of the individual, exclusive of the appendages and pcrithe- 
cium, is spoken of as the receptacle- although, in this instance, it consists fundamen- 
tally of the usual two superposed basal cells, while distally it is formed from a 
consolidation of the stalk-cell of the perithecium (cell VI), which has become laterally 
« 
united with what is in reality the base of an appendage (cells III-V). In other cases 
it is often difficult to determine exactly how the receptacle should be limited, as, 
for example, in the genus Chaitomyces (Plate XI, fig. 20), in which it consists 
of a single series of superposed cells which give rise directly to perithecia or to 
appendages. 
The simplest type of receptacle, vrhich is found in more than half of the genera, 
consists of only two superposed cells, the upper of which bears the appendage, at first 
lly; while the perithecium, or perithecia, if 
P» 
f 
Tliis type is well illustrated by such genera as Ilai 
myces and its allies (Plate VII) Compsomyces (Plate XI, fig. 7) and similar instances; 
while, as has been above indicated, even genera like Laboulbenia are fundamentally 
similar. In other genera various degrees of complication are found in the develop- 
ment of the receptacle which passes gradually from the simple two-celled type to 
