80 



Mycologia 



Microscopically the mature resting spores, or as they perhaps 

 should be called, azygospores, appear as spherical, slightly brown- 

 ish bodies, the outer wall of which is beautifully reticulated in a 

 manner such as is shown on Plate 6, Fig. T. They are remark- 

 ably uniform in size, mesauring 38-48 microns in diameter, 

 averaging 44 microns. 



Unfortunately all stages in the development of these azygospores 

 were not seen in fresh material and particularly those stages as- 

 sociated with the transfer of protoplasmic material from the 

 byphal body to the resting spore. Alcoholic material, which it 

 may be stated was all collected in the daytime, indicates, how- 

 ever, that the process is a non-sexual one, and that the azygo- 

 spores arise as buds or outgrowths upon the hyphal bodies into 

 which, as they enlarge, flows the entire protoplasmic contents of 

 the hyphal body, the empty and evanescent walls of which some- 

 times remain attached to the mature resting spores. 



The writer showed (Speare, 1912) in connection with Ento- 

 mophthora pseudococci that the presence or absence of daylight, 

 at the time of maturity of the hyphal bodies, predetermined to a 

 large extent the type of reproductive body that was formed, and 

 that the azygospores of the fungus in question, could be pro- 

 duced at will, by placing artificial cultures of the fungus in a 

 dark situation a few hours before the hyphal bodies were ready 

 to " germinate." It would therefore seem reasonable, if one de- 

 sired to collect the early resting spore stages in such a similar 

 form as Massospora cicadina, to search for them during the 

 night, yet, inadvertently no collections were made at this time in 

 the present investigation. Nevertheless, the alcoholic material 

 shows with reasonable certainty that no sexual process is pres- 

 ent, and that the development of the resting spores, conforms 

 quite well with the development of the azygospores in other 

 members of the family such as Entomophthora aulicae Reich. 



The resting spores of Massospora cicadina like the analogous 

 bodies of many other of the entomogenous species of the family 

 have never been seen to germinate. In the writer's tests a num- 

 ber of them were heated at varying degrees of temperature, and a 

 number were permitted to remain out-of-doors all winter, yet no 



