228 MONOGRAPH OF THE LABOULBEN'IACE^. 
crushinrr perithecia In some aqueous stain like eosin, perfect asci in various stages of 
maturity are very easily obtained, either free or still attached to the ascogenic cell. 
Before they sepai-ate from their attachment, the asci are generally much distorted 
mutual pressure, but assume a more or less regular form after they have become free. 
As the ascus mass or masses increase in size, their upward pressure soon destroys 
the superior supporting cell, as we have already seen ; while their downward pressure 
F 
in most instances destroys the primary and secondary inferior supporting cells, at the 
same time freeing the ascogenic cells from one another, if there are more than one ; so 
that the latter eventually lie in the cavity of the perithecium, free and unconnected with 
any other cells. In some cases the inferior supporting cell persists after the ascogenic 
cells have freed themselves from their attachments, as is the case to a certain extent in 
Stigmatomyces, the supporting cell in this instance being so placed as to be protected by 
the basal cells of the perithecium which surround it. In a similar manner the inferior 
supporting cell in the species of Laboulbenia allied to L.imlmella persists permanently, 
for the reason that it is surrounded by the lower series of wall-cells of the perithe- 
cium, which are modified to form a perithecial stalk, and corticate it completely. 
The further destructive action of the ascus masses on the parietal and canal cells of 
the perithecium has already been described in connection with Stigmatomyces. 
i 
With the formation of the spores and the disappearance of the ascus-wall, the his- 
tory of the female organ and its products is completed ; but, as we have seen, the 
changes which it has undergone are accompanied by changes in the cells of the peri- 
thecium proper which are also subject to certain variations from the course ot 
development described as characteristic of Stigmatomyces. 
In all cases the perithecium proper, by which is meant all portions of it exclusive 
of the female organ and its prod 
^4AlM,UV/0 <lik3 Ctl OiJIil 
cell (Plate I, fig. 1 
Plate III, fig. 14, c) that lies wholly below the terminal cell which gives origin to the 
female organ in the manner above described. This cell, which has already been 
alluded to as the primordial cell of the perithecium, divides, in cases which have been 
followed out and probably in most if not in all of the other genera^ into two cells more 
or less obliquely superposed (Plate I, fig. 11, 6c", and Plate III, ficr. 15, c\c"V. the 
divisions of which follow in general the same course which has 
Stigmatomyces, and may be briefly recapitulated with reference to the genus E 
thromyces. Comparing figs. 15-17 of Plate III, which represent three successive 
of development, we have in fig. 15 the condition just referred to, in which 
the primordial cell of the perithecium (fig. 14, c) has divided into two obliquely 
been described 
d cells [c') and (/'). In fig. 16 each of these has divided, (c^ 
