156 DIVISION II.—-COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 
“sphere-yeast” or ‘ mucor-yeast,’ partly from its resemblance in shape to the Saccharo- 
mycete of yeast and partly from its power of exciting alcoholic fermentation. Under 
certain conditions the sprouts behave like spores of Mucor. 
All the gemmae which have now been described are capable of developing by 
germination into normal mucor-mycelium, either at once or after a prolonged period 
of rest, if properly fed and supplied with air. Each gemma of Mucor racemosus, 
cultivated in moist air without supply of food, is capable of developing at the expense 
of its protoplasm into a typical but very minute sporangiophore with a sporangium 
containing in extreme cases not more than eight spores (Brefeld). 
Doubtful Mucorini. 1. Sorokin! has described under the name of Zygochy- 
trium aurantiacum a Fungus which grows on dead insects beneath the water, and 
which if that writer’s observations are confirmed is asmall species of this group adapted to 
growing in water. The entire plant consists of an erect tube with two bifurcations, alto- 
gether scarcely o.1 mm. in height, attached to the substratum by short lobes at its base 
without any proper mycelium. Globular sporangia producing numerous swarm-spores 
with one cilium as in the Chytridieae (see section XLVI) are formed at the extremities of 
the branches; and a zygospore is also produced at the first bifurcation in perfect specimens 
in the manner which has been described in the case of Mucor. The course of 
development is in other points like that of Mucor. These observations have yet 
to be confirmed. 
2. Van Tieghem® describes under the names of Dimargaris cristalligena and , 
Dispira cornuta two Fungi growing on dung, which have very peculiar gonidiophores, 
but otherwise agree with Piptocephalis in being parasitic on the Mucorini, in the 
mode in which they enter the cells of their host, in the presence of transverse walls in 
the gonidiophores and in the chains of gonidia. The genesis of the gonidial chains is 
not indeed fully described, but the drawings would seem to show that it is similar to 
that of Piptocephalis. It is as yet by no means certain that these Fungi belong to the 
Piptocephalic group, but this affinity is highly probable, since we know of na species 
outside the Mucorini which they approach in form. The point can only be decided by 
the discovery of zygospores or some structure homologous with them. 
3. The same may be said of a small group, which may be called the Coemansieae, 
consisting of Coemans’ Kickxella and Martensella and Coemansia of Van Tieghem 
and Le Monnier. The mode of life of these Fungi, of Kickxella at least and Coemansia, 
is the same according to Van Tieghem as in Piptocephalis. In the structure of their 
gonidiophores, the only part at present known beside the mycelium, they differ materially 
from the acknowledged members of the group of the Mucorini. Their common and 
chief peculiarity consists in the possession of basidial branches of somewhat fusiform 
appearance, falcately curved, and divided by transverse walls into several cells from which 
on the concave side of the branch numerous spores, placed clase together in two or more 
comb-like longitudinal rows, are abjointed both simultaneously and one by one. The 
spores themselves are narrowly fusiform, pointed at both ends, and emit their germ-tubes 
at right angles to their own longitudinal axis. Basidial branches of this kind form in 
Kickxella a whorl of 6-14 members with their concave sides upwards on the apex of the 
erect septate filament that bears them, which is elsewhere usually unbranched and is 
scarcely 0.3 mm. in height. In the other genera they stand singly in racemose 
arrangement on the dichotomously ramifying branches of the gonidiophore. No 
zygospores are known; but Coemans and afterwards Van Tieghem and Le Monnier 
found small ascomycetous sporocarps in the neighbourhood of the gonidiophores ; 
whether they belonged to each other is a very doubtful question. 

1 Bot. Ztg. 1874, p. 305. ? Van Tieghem, II. 
