SEXUAL REPRODUCTION. 173 
One of the warts, larger than the rest, and recognizable by its 
cylindrical form, always forms a kind of thick sheath around 
the fecundating tube. The ripe endospore is a thick, smooth, 
colourless membrane, composed of collulose containing a bed of 
finely granulated protoplasm, which surrounds a great central 
vacuole. This oospore, or resting spore, may remain dormant 
in this state within the tissues of the foster plant for some 
months. Its ultimate development by production of zoospores 
is similar to the production of zoospores from conidia, which 
it is unnecessary to repeat here. The oospore becomes an 
oosporangium, and from it at least a hundred germinating 
bodies are at length expelled. 
Amongst the principal observers of certain phenomena of copu- 
lation in cells formed in the earliest stages of the Discomycetes 
are Professor de Bary,* Dr. Woronin,t and Messrs. Tulasne.{ 
In the Ascobolus pulcherrimus of Crouan, Woronin ascertained 
that the cup derives its origin from a short and flexible tube, 
thicker than the other branches of the mycelium, and which is 
soon divided by transverse septa into a series of cells, the succes- 
sive increase of which finally gives to the whole a torulose and 
unequal appearance. The body thus formed he calls a “ vermi- 
form body.” The same observer also seems to have convinced 
himself that there exists always in proximity to this body certain 
filaments, the short arched or inflected branches of which, like 
so many antheridia, rest their anterior extremities on the utri- 
form cells. This contact seems to communicate to the vermiform 
body a special vital energy, which is immediately directed towards 
the production of a somewhat filamentous tissue, on which the 
hymenium is at a later period developed. This “ vermiform 
‘body”’ of M. Woronin has since come to be recognized under 
the name of “ scolecite.” 
Tulasne observes that this “ scolecite”’ or ringed body can be 
readily isolated in Ascobolus furfuraceus. When the young re- 
* De Bary, in ‘‘ Annales des Sciences Naturelles” (5™¢ sér.), p. 343. 
‘++ Woronin, in De Bary’s ‘‘ Beitr. zur. Morph. und Physiol. der Pilze,” ii, 
(1866), pp. 1-12. i 
} Tulasne, ‘Ann. des Sci. Nat.” (5™¢ sér.), October, 1866, p. 211. 
