82 PHYLOGENY 
Pyronema confluens and in many other members of the Asco- 
mycetes there is a double fusion (one in the ascogonium and 
one in the young ascus), followed by a double reduction in the 
ascus during the formation of the eight spores, the first division 
being meiotic, the second homotypic, and the third brachymevotze. 
In view of the established relationship between the Ascomycetes 
on the one hand and the Uredinales and Basidiomycetes on 
the other, this idea seems to be very unlikely. If correct, the 
double process is a special development, peculiar to some only 
of the Ascomycetes. The matter can only be decided by fresh 
investigations, but it seems in all probability that the hypo- 
thesis of a second fusion and subsequent brachymeiosis is the 
result merely of a misinterpretation of the observed. phenomena. 
According to Lutman (1910), in the Ustilaginales most of 
the cells of the mycelium are binucleate, but the perfect resting 
spores are always uninucleate, as are the cells of the basidia. 
Rawitscher (1912) says the same, and adds that the con- 
jugate condition arises (according to the species) by the 
anastomosis in pairs either of the basidium-cells, or of the 
basidiospores, or of the cells of the mycelium produced by 
them, and the passage of the nucleus of the one cell into the 
other to form a synkaryon. 
Finally, it may be pointed out that the ideas embodied in 
the foregoing discussion are in harmony with the now generally 
accepted doctrine of the polyphyletic origin of the Fungi, by 
which it is assumed that their various groups are not derived 
from one or two ancestors, but originated separately from 
distinct sub-divisions of the Alge, much in the same way in 
which (on a smaller scale) the non-chlorophyllose Phanerogams 
have arisen from various orders or families of Flowering Plants. 
From this point of view, according to which the vast majority 
of the Fungi originated from the Red Alge, it is not without 
significance that already some of that group are known which 
(though still rightly classed as Algee) have assumed a true holo- 
parasitic habit—a statement which cannot be made to the same 
extent, if at all, about other algal groups. Examples are found 
in the well-known Harveyella mirabilis (Sturch, 1899) and in 
Choreocolaz Polysiphoniae (Richards, 1891). 
