1910) MCCUBBIN—DEVELOPMENT OF THE HELVELLINEAE 201 
seem to indicate a vegetative function. They are to be found at the 
base of the hymenium giving off paraphyses, or within the hymenial 
layer, in which case they are surmounted by one or more paraphyses 
(figs. 43, 64); or they may force their way to the surface, appearing 
there as enlarged clublike processes plainly having the jointed struc- 
ture of the paraphyses. The ends of these processes are often found 
ruptured and the contents, like lava from a crater, overflowing the 
neighboring surface. These enlargements are further found all 
through the subhymenial hyphal mass, and many of the palisade 
hyphae originate from those near the lower surface (fig. 60). In 
addition to that, these bodies are found connected with the fertile 
filaments either remotely in the subhymenial layer or else having 
the ascogenous hyphae proceeding directly from them. Often part 
of an ascogenous hypha, at quite as late a stage as the formation of the 
hooks, is greatly enlarged, the similarity of stain and nuclear structure 
leaving no doubt as to the close resemblance of these swellings to 
the bodies in other parts of the ascoma (figs. 36, 62). In very young 
Stages of development these bodies are not present, but they appear 
quite early in the history of the ascoma, as previously mentioned. 
At the time when the asci are fully formed, they are usually empty, 
their connections have vanished, and their walls are shrunken and 
degenerate. Observations on a considerable number of specimens 
indicate that these bodies vary with the individual, being largest and 
most abundant in vigorous plants. They vary also in the individual, 
serial sections showing one-half of the fruiting body well supplied 
with them and the other containing scarcely one. 
With the foregoing data in hand, it seems most reasonable to regard 
these peculiar structures as organs for the storage of food material. 
ASCOGENOUS HYPHAE.—When the fruiting body is about 1.25 
in diameter, the first hyphae which are undoubtedly ascogenous 
make their appearance. Some of the hyphal threads form a matted 
web a short distance below the layer of paraphyses (fig. 59). The 
threads of this web are long, straight, multinucleate, sparsely branched, 
and twice or thrice the thickness of the ordinary filaments. It is 
from these that the vertical ascus-bearing threads arise. 
A comparison with what DirrricH records for Mitrula shows that 
in Helvella there is a much later differentiation of the fertile filaments. 
