CHAPTER V.—COMPARATIVE REVIEW.—ASCOMYCETES. 1 89 
The Ascomycetes which bear apothecia are well known under the name of 
Discomycetes and Gymnocarpous Lichens. The apothecia in the largest species 
are compound sporophores of considerable size with limited growth in the direction of 
the apex or margin, club-shaped or cochleariform in Geoglossum, Spathulea, &c., a 
stalked cap in Morchella, Helvella, Leotia, Verpa, and others. The early stages 
of the development of these bodies are little known, but they may be ranked as 
sporocarps with the forms which will be mentioned directly on account of similarity of 
structure, and the presence of intermediate forms, especially the large stalked Pezizae. 
The most characteristic and frequent form is that of the roundish or oblong disk-shaped 


FIG. 88. Anaptychia ciliaris. Small piece of a vertical section through an 'hecium ; #7 medullary layer of 
the thallus, 7 subhy jal layer, 2 with asci between them. The Is 1-4 i 
stages in the development of the spores. After Sachs. Magn. sso times, 


hymenia, which are plane, convex or concave, and in the latter case usually like a bowl 
or cup, on a Stalked or sessile receptaculum or excipulum, as in the Pezizae and in most 
gymnocarpous Lichen-fungi. The usual mode of growth by gradual advance towards 
the apex or margin does not prevent the appearance of intercalary surface-growth, which 
does in fact occur very often and with very varying distribution of the preferred places 
of growth ; and this may produce a variety of changes in the original shape of the 
hymenial surface, such as splittings and prolifications, the latter producing a very peculiar 
and characteristic form in Gyrophora!. For the details of these phenomena, which 
-have yet to be more certainly ascertained in many points, we must refer the reader to 

1 See Krabbe in Bot. Ztg. 1882, Nr. 5-8. 
