340 DIVISION II.—COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 
are analogous cases known in the Ascomycetes which illustrate the opposite theory 
of a retrogressive development. 
An attempt was made in former sections to show that the series of the Ascomy- 
cetes connects with the Algae which form oospheres through the Peronosporeae 
and Zygomycetes and their allies, and may be derived from them in progressive 
succession; also that the Uredineae are united as a member to this series. This view 
may at present be said to be the one which accords best and most naturally with the 
facts as known to us. But if this is the accepted view, we must necessarily adopt 
that one of the alternative assumptions, which makes the tremelloid Uredineae and 
Basidiomycetes degenerate descendants of those members of the series of the Ascomy- 
cetes, to which observation directly points; otherwise they must have a double phylo- 
genetic origin, which can hardly be admitted in so comparatively narrow a group as 
the Uredineae. The series of the Basidiomycetes when once parted off advanced to 
a high and peculiar development, as is shown by the Amanitae, Phalloideae, Sphaero- 
bolus, and other forms. . 
The views which have been developed in the preceding paragraphs explain the 
intimation given above on page 331 respecting the terminology of the reproductive 
organs in the Basidiomycetes. The word gonidia has a different meaning here from 
what it has in the series of Ascomycetes, where it was used with reference or in 
opposition to the carpospores (page 129); in the Basidiomycetes, where there are 
no carpospores, the term gonidia is applied to certain spores other than the daszdio- 
spores, and these are themselves phylogenetically homologous with certain gonidia of 
the Uredineae. The question whether the gonidia of the Tremellineae can be 
considered to be homologous with the uredogonidia of the Uredineae may fairly be 
termed a needless one; certainly there is little real objection to be made to this 
view. Still the question necessarily connected with it, whether the ‘rods’ observed 
hitherto without germination in some Hymenomycetes (page 332) are homologous 
with the gonidia of the Tremellineae, or are spermatia derived through the descent 
from the Ascomycetes, had better be left for the present without an answer. Further 
observations will perhaps determine these matters. 
The views here expressed respecting the genealogy of the Fungi are of course only 
an attempt to bring the separate facts at present known into the unity of a single 
scheme ; every displacement in the basis of facts may necessitate an alteration in 
the scheme. 
The near connection which has been pointed out between the Hymenomycetes and 
the Uredineae may well be regarded as an established fact that is not likely to be 
set aside. There are certain alleged reasons why the former should be considered 
to be derived phylogenetically from the latter, and not vice versa. These are also 
good reasons in the present state of our knowledge, but the progress of inquiry may 
affect them, especially as they are derived, not only directly from the subject-matter 
in question, but partly also from remoter sources. 
Starting from the same facts we may even now arrive at other results than these, 
as appears from Brefeld’s views, though not without the help of some very bold 
hypotheses. What is to be said concerning these views will be found in a former 
treatise of my own? to which the reader is referred. 

1 Schimmelpilze, III and IV. 
? Beitr. IV, p. 131. 
