SPORE DISSEMINATION 33 
The organ when examined under a high power appears to be 
actually segmented as shown in ۸ rọ. کر‎ 77, in which five seg- 
ments are distinctly shown. In this particular specimen, which is 
from Montana, both the blue and the brown reactions with iodine 
were manifest. The basal segment gave the blue reaction and the 
second segment a very deep brown which gradually decreased in 
intensity upward and finally disappeared entirely in the lower por- 
tion of the upper segment leaving the upper portion perfectly hya- 
line. 
The behavior of this apical organ on being removed from the 
ascus is of great interest. In the Montana specimens this has 
been actually observed in two or three instances entirely acci- 
dentally, however. In ۶۸ 79. f. 77, 18, the organ is shown both 
before and after the removal. The upper segment will be seen to 
have diminished in size, the three middle ones to have increased 
slightly in all dimensions, but the lower one has become tremend- 
ously enlarged. These observations, while of considerable interest, 
furnish only presumptive evidence regarding the function of the 
organ. 
Dr. D. T. MacDougal has recently suggested to me, rather 
reservedly, that the blue coloration in this structure may possibly 
be due to the presence of a mixture of amylose and pectin com- 
pounds such as are described by Pfeffer* for the epidermal cells 
of Saponaria officinalis, Arum Italicum and other species. The 
suggestion is instructive, but no positive statement can be made 
regarding it at present. The fact that there occurs a brown re- 
action at times in some species would indicate that the composi- 
tion is by no means constant. 
Further investigation of this apical body of the ascus is neces- 
sary. A careful study of its development and occurrence in other 
genera of the Sphaeriales may have an important bearing on the 
question of relationship. Indeed the genus Hypocopra appears to 
have a close affinity to some of the genera of the Xylariaceae. 
In passing from the genera which have spores with one cell 
to those which have spores with three or more cells there occurs 
an entirely different method of spore dissemination ; as far as my 
observations go, the asci here are not elastic at all. Not a single 
* Plant Physiology, English ed. 473. 
