CHAPTER V.—COMPARATIVE REVIEW.—MUCORINI. 153 
turn in a hair-point ; the lateral branches of the last order swell into irregularly capitate 
basidia, from the short slender sterigmata of which 8-20 spherical spores are 
simultaneously abjointed. Similar sporiferous structures with hair-points are formed on 
the terminal ramifications of copiously branched gonidiophores, which rise in a curve 
into the air from well-fed mycelia in a similar manner to the stolons of Rhizopus. 
Many variations occur in the number and disposition of the whorls and the successive 
orders of branches; a small cluster of spores may take the place of the terminal 
hair-points, especially in weakly specimens. It is hardly possible to detect any strict 
tule in the primary branching of the stolons, the typical form of which appears to be 
indiscriminately sympodial and monopodial. Some of the primary branches terminate 
in spore-clusters; others seize on 
sporangiophores of Mucorandadhere 
to them, and send out new stolons 
from the points of adherence which 
are swollen. Zygospores also are 
formed on the stolons. Cunning- 
ham’s Choanephora may also be- 
long to this division, with a creeping 
endophytic mycelium and straight 
erect simple sporophores ending in 
umbellately arranged heads of ba- 
sidia, from which many spores are 
simultaneously abjointed. 
3. PIPTOCEPHALIDEAE. In Syn- 
cephalis the very delicate mycelium 
gives rise to short erect unicellular 
usually unbranched gonidiophores 
with a circle of rhizoids at their base, 
and with one bifurcation in S. furcata. 
A dense umbel of simple or dicho- 
tomously branching spore-rows is 
formed at the capitate swollen apex 
of the gonidiophore by the cross-sep- 
tation of cylindrical mother-cells (see 
section XVI). Piptocephalis (Fig. 
74) differs from Syncephalis in its re- 
peatedly dichotomouslybranchedand 
septate simple sporophores which 
are often large and tall, and in the 
circumstance that the capitate sum- 
mit which bears the spore-rows falls 
off with them when they are ripe. 
The mycelium of the species of both Wee ee a er ees 
genera 1s par asitic on the larger to M and sending slender filaments into it, ¢ gonidiophore, Z zygo- 
Mucoreae, making its way into their aa ee Loe ig ee ns 
cells by means of delicate haustoria 
(section V). 
The formation of the gonidia of Chaetocladium and the Piptocephalideae was 
described and named above in section XVI in accordance with the facts observed 
in Chaetocladium, Piptocephalis Freseniana, and Syncephalis. Van Tieghem’s view 
of the process is different from mine. He considers that the spore-chain of Synce- 
phalis and Piptocephalis is formed, like the gonidia of Mucor, simply by division of the 
protoplasm of the mother-cell, and is then set at liberty by the disappearance (resorp- 
tion) of its membrane ; and he regards the acrogenously formed spores of Chaetocladium 


