46 DIVISION I.—GENERAL MORPHOLOGY. 
species of Coprinus, Claviceps, Mucor stolonifer, and Syncephalis, this power does 
not exist. 
Sporophores may be divided, according to their structure, into two groups: 
simple or filamentous sporophores (Fruchthyphen, Fruchtfäden), consisting of a single 
hypha or of a branch of a hypha, and compound sporophores (Fruchtkörper) in the sense 
assigned to the expression ‘compound’ in section I. 
1. SIMPLE SPOROPHORES. 
Section XI. Simple sporophores are branches of mycelial hyphae which 
usually rise erect from them, and are themselves branched in a variety of modes 
characteristic of the different species. When the hypha or its branch has grown to 
a length which has a fixed average in each species, seldom, as for example in the 
larger Mucorineae and Saprolegnieae, exceeding a few millimetres, the organs of 
reproduction, spore-mother-cells, spores, are produced at their extremities in forms 
which also vary in the different species and groups of species. With the formation 
of these organs the growth of the sporophore ceases in most cases at once and for 
ever, as for instance in the sporangiophores of Mucor and in the gonidiophores of 
Peronospora (section XXX VII). 
In other cases, such as that of the successive abjunction of spores which will 
be described in section XVI, the growth, that is the increase in size of the sporophore, 
comes virtually to an end with the commencement of abjunction; but abjunction 
may continue at the same spots for a considerable length of time if sufficient 
nourishment is supplied. The gonidiophores of Penicillium, Eurotium, and Asper- 
gillus are examples of this kind (see section XVI). 
In a third series of cases the first terminal formation of spores takes place at the 
extremity of the sporophore after its apical growth has ceased, and when this 
formation is completed a fresh growth in length of the sporophore begins at or close 
beneath it, and is soon stopped by a new formation of spores similar to the first one ; 
and on one hypha or branch the same process may be again and again repeated. 
The second case is described, as was said above, in greater detail in section XVI. 
The first and the third may be illustrated by some examples in the present place, 
though their consideration will also be resumed in later sections. . 
The thick tubular aseptate simple sporophores of the different species of Sapro- 
legnia abjoint their extremity, which is club-shaped and filled with protoplasm, by 
a transverse septum to form a spore-mother-cell (sporangium), in which numerous 
spores are formed by division of its protoplasm (section XVIII). The spores escape when 
ripe by an opening at the apex of the sporangium, which elsewhere remains entire. 
This is all that happens in weakly specimens, which therefore represent our first case. 
In strong specimens on the other hand which have been duly fed, the transverse septum 
beneath the empty sporangium becomes convex outwards and projects into the 
sporangium, and assumes the character of a new tubular point, which grows on into 
the empty sporangium and often through the opening at its apex into the 
free space beyond, and finally transforms its terminal portion into a new sporangium. 
This process may be repeated several times on the same sporangiophore, so that 
several successive sporangia are nested within one another. : 
The allied genus Achlya differs partly from Saprolegnia in developing one or two 
opposite lateral branches close beneath the empty sporangium, which themselves 
