96 DIVISION I.—GENERAL MORPHOLOGY. 
as it was described in Peziza Sclerotiorum, &c. (Fig. 43), which is extended 
by stretching into a thin membrane, it becomes a question whether the thickenings 
in the cases we are considering are not extended in the same way into thin membranes 
with the expansion of the ascus, and are to be considered therefore as reserve-pieces 
of membrane destined to be extended and to assist in the ejection of the spores, and 
comparable with the ring of cellulose in the vegetative cells of CEdogonium ; the 
matter at least deserves inquiry. 
Thickenings of the apex such as those that have been described occur also in 
the asci of many Pyrenomycetes, in which ejection has never been observed. With 
these may be specially mentioned the conical projection in species of Rosellinia 
which has been recently examined by Crie!, but is better understood and described 
by de Seynes?. In dried specimens of Rosellinia Aquila the cone is a cylindrically ovoid 
body projecting from the apex into the interior of the ascus, longer than the breadth 
of the apex of the ascus which it almost but not quite fills, and traversed by a narrow 
longitudinal canal; in other words it is like a very thick annular ridge projecting from 
the inner surface of the wall of the apex: it is coloured dark blue with iodine, as has 
been often described. If the view expressed 
in the case of Cordyceps is correct, it is a ques- 
tion in the last-mentioned case also whether 
the thickenings at the apex are not reserve- 
pieces to assist in the ejection of the sporesand 
destined to expansion. On the other hand, 
from Zopf’s account of Sordaria Brefeldii 
(page 88) we might ask whether they possibly 
serve as means of fixing the spores in the apex 
of the ascus. All this requires investigation, 
in which each species must be separately ex- 
amined, since ejection is by no means found 
in all the Pyrenomycetes. 
Section XXVII. Liberation of the 
FIG. 48. SPA: A lloides, P. i, : Pi . 
doneofthem more highly magnifed. canearlyripeseas, SPOres by solution or gelatinous swelling 
d outline of an isolated ripe spore. outline of a similar 
spore from which all but a small portion of thedark violet Of the wall of the ascus occurs, but not 
episporium has been detached. 4 magn. about 700, all the = . . 
rest about 390 times. frequently, in free open hymenia. It appears, 
however, in the latter of the two forms to 
be characteristic of the Discomycete Roeslaria hypogaea’. It occurs in the first 
form, or with a disappearance of the ascus that cannot be more exactly defined, in 
Sphaerophoron (Fig. 48), Acroscyphus, and the Calycieae, to which the genera 
Lichina and Paulia which have perithecia are nearly allied, as has been shown 
by Montagne‘, Fresenius®, and Tulasne®. The young spores in an early stage 
are almost as broad as the narrow and delicate asci, and are arranged in a 
single or in places in a double and uninterrupted row in the upper parts of 
the ascus, from the wall of which they are separated by only a thin layer of 
protoplasm (or glycogen-mass) a, 4. They now enlarge more rapidly than the 


! Comptes rendus, 88 (1879), pp. 759, 985. 
? Comptes rendus, 88 (1879), pp. 823, 1043.—R. Hartig in Unters.—d. forstbot. Inst. z. München 
I, p. 20, t. II. 
* Von Thümen, Pilze d. Weinstocks, p. 210. 
* Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 2, XV, 1841. 
* Fresenius in Flora, 1848, p. 753. 
° Mém. p. 77. See also Strasburger, Zellbildung u. Zelltheilung, 3rd ed. p. 54. 
