220 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MarcH 
2. Material for study was collected at Ithaca, New York, and 
a paper describing the origin of the apothecium in this species has 
already been published (27). 
3. The vegetative mycelium is parasitic on the roots of trees, 
and develops profusely in the soil. On the surface of the ground 
or on parasitized roots minute primordia of fruit-bodies are 
developed. These are composed of undifferentiated hyphae which 
form at the periphery a somewhat indefinite palisade layer. 
4. After the ascocarp primordium has attained a diameter of 
approximately 1mm., certain hyphae near its center are trans- 
formed into archicarps. As many as 8 archicarps may be developed 
in a single ascocarp. 
5. The individual archicarp develops by the rapid growth and 
transformation of an ordinary multicellular hypha. Its cells 
are multinucleate from the first. The nuclei increase greatly in 
number by repeated division and the archicarp soon takes on a 
dense opaque appearance. 
6. An antheridium is absent. 
7. The archicarp develops in some cases as a loose coil, and in 
others winds irregularly among the other hyphae, but tight coils 
have not been found. The number of cells in a single archicarp 
has been found to vary from to to 19 or more. 
8. The terminal cell of the archicarp is small and attenuated, and 
at maturity shows disorganized protoplasmic contents. It has 
been here from analogy termed the trichogyne, but it certainly 
does not function. 
g. As the archicarp approaches maturity ; a single, very promi- 
nent, deeply staining, hemispherical or convex pad appears on each 
side of the transverse septa. These pairs of deeply staining pads 
apparently represent a swelling of the wall due to gelatinization 
at that point. They later fuse and finally disappear, leaving 4 
large pore in the septum. 
10. Approximately one-half of the cells of the archicarp lying 
at the center of the coil now put out ascogenous hyphae. The 
remaining basal and apical cells fail to bud, and their nuclei and 
cytoplasm flow through the pores in the transverse septa into the 
ascogonial cells, and thence into the ascogenous hyphae. 
