The Reproduction of Ahnfeltia plicata. 2 
SJ 
neighbourhood of the nemathecia and he thinks it possible 
that they represent a very much reduced sexuality, a view 
with which I cannot agree. Monospores were grown in 
£ 
culture, but "after three to five months, only rudimentary 
disc-like structures have been obtained”. GREGORY found 
in the medullary cells both a four and an eight chromosome 
complex, but he adds that it is not yet known whether 
the eight chromosome condition bears any relation to the 
cell-fusions. There is some evidence that there are eight 
chromosomes in the apical cells and in the monospores 
of Sterrocolax decipiens’. As mentioned above, I found four 
chromosomes in the apical cells of the nemathecia; when 
eight chromosomes were observed in such a cell, it was shortly 
after the division of the nucleus. The author concludes 
that the mode of origin of Sterrocolax decipiens and its 
similarity in structure to Ahnfeltia plicala suggest the pro- 
bability that it is the asexual biont of its so-called “host”. 
At the same time appeared another paper treating the 
same subject, namely E. CHEMIN: Ahnfeltia plicata Fries 
et son mode de reproduction. Bull. de la soc. bot. de France, 
t. 77 p. 342-354. The author examined the structure of the 
nemathecia but he did not observe the “Senker” of SCHMITZ. 
He points out that Scumirz did not say anything about the 
origin of the parasite and emphasizes the continuity of 
the cell-filaments at the boundary between the cortex and 
the nemathecium, but the photograph (plate IV) representing 
a vertical section of a nemathecium' also shows numerous 
cells intensely stained with haematoxylin in the bottom 
layer of the nemathecium. It seems probable that these 
cells are identical with those which I have described above 
as flask-shaped, though CHEMIN, who has observed them, 
1 Not a gall, as erroneously said at the foot of the plate. 
