606 The American Naturalist. [July, 
more than twenty genera, appear to warrant the following con- 
clusions.” 
“The Laboulbeniacee, while showing no signs of any non-sexual 
mode of reproduction are characterized by a well marked sexual type 
closely resembling that of the simpler Floridec.” 
He goes on to give a summary of the process, which cannot well be 
abbreviated, and which is too long to be repeated in this place. Suffice 
it to say that he has found that “the trichogyne varies from a simple 
vescicular receptive prominence, or short filament, to a copiously 
branched and highly developed organ,” that, however highly it may be 
developed, it always disappears immediately after fertilization; that 
the antherozoids are non-motile spherical or rod like masses of naked 
protoplasm, which originate in two genera exogenously from special 
branches and in other genera are produced endogenously in antheri- 
dia; that the antheridia are either single specialized cells or highly 
developed multicellular bodies, from which in either case the anther- 
ozoids are discharged through a terminal pore. It appears also that 
while the sexes are commonly present in the same individual, in some 
species they are completely separated on specialized individuals. 
Although the observations, on which the foregoing conclusions are 
based, are not given, we may take it to be settled that the doubts as to 
the nature of the reproduction in these fungi raised by the observations 
of Peyritsch are set at rest. If so, several interesting questions arise. 
There seems to be no doubt, as Mr. Thaxter remarked in a prior 
paper, that these fungi are real Ascomycetes. Indeed their title to a 
place in that group seems much better than that of some others which 
are included with little hesitation. If they are Ascomycetes, the ghost 
of the much vexed question of sexual reproduction in that group, which 
it was supposed had been effectually laid by Brefeld, must soon begin 
anew its visitations. And in any case, since the relationship of the 
Laboulbeniacee to the Ascomycetes as a whole must be close, even 
though they have no apparent relationship to any particular group of 
them, the whole scheme of the relationship of the Ascomycetes framed 
by Brefeld and his followers is placed on very shaky ground by the 
conclusions which Mr. Thaxter has announced. 
After it had been shown that there was no sexual process in the 
Ascomycetes, the question remained, to what fruiting stage of the simpler 
fungi does the ascus stage of the Ascomycetes correspond. Brefeld has 
answered this by comparing it with the sporangium fructification of 
the Mucoracee. The ordinary Ascomycetes, called Carpoasci, he derives 
