CHAPTER V.—COMPARATIVE REVIEW.—ASCOMPCETES. 243 
his Peziza benesuada (Fig. 115); similar organs occupy the margin of the platter- 
shaped tube-bearing hymenia of Cenangium Frangulae, Tul. Small round cells 
incapable of germination, which will be noticed again in a subsequent page, are 
said by Brefeld! to be sometimes abscised from the ramifications of the paraphyses in 
Peziza Sclerotiorum. 
The second place where these doubtful ‘spermatia’ occur is in the pycnidia of 
certain species, in which spores as well as spermatia are produced; such species, 
according to Tulasne, are Cenangium Fraxini, Tul., Dermatea carpinea, Fr., D. 
Coryli, Tul., D. dissepta, Tul., where the spermatia-forming hyphae also occupy 
chiefly the margin of the hymenium, also in D. amoena, Tul., Peziza arduen- 
nensis and Aglaospora. 
Thirdly, small short-lived cells, which do not germinate and may be compared 
with spermatia, are abscised in many species from filiform branchlets of the mycelium 
and from the germ-tubes, or even directly from the germinating spores. 
Brefeld? found a multitude of such formations on the 
mycelium of artificially grown plants of Peziza (Sclerotinia) 
tuberosa. From short branches, often with tufts of branchlets 
as in Penicillium, are abjointed successively and serially at the 
extremities of their ramifications small cells, each containing 
a small sphere of a highly refringent perhaps fatty substance, 
and these are cemented together by a jelly and thus collected 
in heaps on the parent-filaments. Tulasne® found just such 
formations on the germ-tubes of the same species and on those 
of Peziza bolaris and P. Durieuana when the spores were sown 
in water. A similar phenomenon occurs sometimes on old 
cultures of the mycelium of P. Sclerotiorum, as Brefeld states 
and I can myself confirm ; but, as far as my experience goes, 
only in isolated cases which cannot be more precisely defined. Fıc. 115. From the hymenium of 
. = R Peziza benesuada, Tul. Ascus sur- 
I observed it also on the young germ-tubes of this species, rounded by paraphyses which are 
but only in a few and these poor and evidently weakly ÄnerTulasne, Highly magnified. 
plants. The small cells mentioned above which are abscised : 
in the cups of P. Sclerotiorum are similar, according to Brefeld, to those which 
we are now describing. The same formations appear also not unfrequently on 
old luxuriant mycelia of P. Fuckeliana grown from ascospores in fruit-juice on a 
microscopical slide (Fig. 116); and Zopf found quite similar structures, the narrowly 
flask-shaped sterigmata, singly or in a tuft according to the luxuriance of the individual, 
on the mycelium of species of Chaetomium, especially on starved specimens, and also 
in species of Sordaria (S. curvula, S. minuta, S. decipiens), Woronin having seen them 
before in S. coprophila. 
Small bodies of the kind here described sprout out directly from the cells of the 
multicellular compound spores of Tulasne’s* Peziza Cylichnium when sown in water. 


* Schimmelpilze, IV, p. 121. 
? Schimmelpilze, IV, p. 113. 
® Ann. d. sc. nat. ser. 3, XX, p. 174, and Carpol. III, t. XXII. 
* Ann. d. sc. nat. ser 3, XX, and Carpologia, III, pp. 200, 202. 
R 2 
