DICHOCARPISM 



67 



the surface of the tubercle, recipients from which escape for 

 some time waves either of pure spermatia or of spermatia 

 mixed with stylospores. Both are ovoid, but the spermatia 

 are uncoloured and much smaller than the stylospores, which 

 are as black as the spores of a Melanconium. These two 

 quotations are given as exhibiting what we have called Dicho- 

 carpism as it was presented to the view of one who accomplished 

 very much in demonstrating the fact that the same species of 

 Fungus is capable of developing reproductive bodies of more 

 than one type or form. 



Our next example shall be found on a dead twig of birch, 

 bursting through the bark in black pustules almost as large as 

 a rape seed, or rather, oozing out in wet weather like thick 

 black ink. Examined more closely, a mycelium will be found 

 at the base forming a compact spore- 

 bed, on which the brown elliptical 

 sporules grow on short sporophores 

 closely packed together. When 

 mature these separate from their 

 sporophores, and ooze from the apex of 

 the pustule in an inky mass. In this 

 condition it is called Melanconium 

 oicolor. Later in the season the same 

 pustules will be found occupied 

 by a cluster of perithecia, perhaps 

 six or eight, placed almost in a circle, 

 with rather long necks (Fig. 42). Internally these perithecia 

 contain numerous asci closely packed together, each ascus con- 

 taining eight sporidia, of an elliptical shape, divided across the 

 centre into two cells, and known as Melanconis stilbostoma, one of 

 the compound Sphaeriacei of which the Melanconium bore the 

 naked conidia, so that we have the same stroma yielding naked 

 stylospores, and afterwards sporidia enclosed in asci. An 

 endless variety might be adduced of ascosporous Sphaeriacei 

 having also a preceding crop of stylospores on the same 

 mycelium. 



Here we may cite two examples of another kind which are 

 described in another chapter. These are — the Mucors, which 

 bear erect fertile branches surmounted by inflated vesicles 



Fig. 42. — Mdanconis. 



