I 
> 
MOXOGRArri OF TKE LAr>OULr>ENlACE.K- 253 
group of merely vegetative cells charged with iiiitninent destined for a special pur- 
pose. Otlicrs, again, believing that the organs described nro sexually significnnt, 
consider them, in many cases, functional, while in others, they may have lost their 
sexual character or have disappeared entirely- ; the presence among the Ascomycctcs 
/ of purely apogamic forms being as readily reconciled with ihe coexistence of Fcxunl 
forms as it is among the riiyconiycetes, where a similar degeneration to an apogamous 
condition is w^ell known to exist in not a few instances. 
Recent investigations^ liowever, cnibodiod In the \ory iniporf;inf pnper on Splia^- 
rotlieca lately pnbllslied by Dr. Harper/ indicate that while De Bary, who niny be 
considered the chief exponent of the view hist mentioned^ was correct in his general 
+ 
observation as to the existence of sexual reproduction in connection with the forma- 
tion of the ascus in this plant, he was misled by bis failure to observe the very sig- 
nificant phenomena exhibited by the changes which t;d^e place in the carpogcnic cell 
after its fertilization. These phenomena, which consist in the production of a scries 
of superposed cells only one of which, and that not the terminal one, enlarges or buds 
out to form the solitary ascus, forbid any such direct comparison as that suggested by 
De Bary, betw^een this single ascus and the oogonium of the Phycomycetcs. It 
seems not unlikely that further and more exact observations on Ercmascus may 
t 
lead to some similar modification of the course of development described by Eidam j 
and in any case, in view of the absence in one or in both of these instances of such 
evidence as thej^ were thought by De Bary to afford in support of his own views, and 
the, to myself at least, wholly unconvincing character of the arguments and illustra- 
tions presented by Brefeld in support of his peculiar theories, one seems justified in 
suggesting at least the possibility of an origin for the Ascomycetes quite different 
from that assumed by either of these authorities. In my own opinion, the comparison 
made by Harper, in the paper cited, between the sexual process therein described and 
that of Nemahon, though it might seem at first sight hardly warrantable, becomes 
distinctly justified w hen one places between these two instances that of the present 
group. 
If, on the one hand, we compare the Laboulbeniaceoe with the Florideae, a very 
distinct agreement is apparent between them as regards their mode of growth and 
general structure ; while this comparison is also suggested by the gelatinous envelope 
and the conspicuously developed continuity of the protoplasm between adjacent cells 
within it. The development of the p 
finds a parallel in that 
of certain cystocarps, and the tj'pe of sexual reproduction in either group 
tiallv identical. 
» Ber. d. Deutsch. Bot. Gesell., Vol. XIIT, p. 475 (1800). 
