144 



Mycologia 



the conidial fructifications as they appear on rotting- straw- 

 berries and figured some of the essential features. Saccardo 

 (1881) figures conidia and branched conidiophores. 



I. Conidial Stage, Hainesia lythri (Desm.) v. Holm. 



By some writers these conidial fructifications are called pyc- 

 nidia, by others acervuli and by still others sporodochia. There 

 is great need of a thorough comparative study of the develop- 

 ment and morphology of the various forms before a terminology 

 can be applied which will indicate the true nature and relation- 

 ships of different sporocarps that occur. Such studies made in 

 connection with the life histories of the organisms should prove 

 very helpful in determining the phylogeny and classification of 

 the ascomycetes. For the purposes of this paper the conidial 

 fructification of this fungus will be called a sporodochium. The 

 fructification of Hainesia is a small disc-shaped body with a dis- 

 tinct excipulum-like base similar to that found in the apothecium 

 of many discomycetes. It seems to the writers that this stage 

 might well be placed among the excipulaceous fungi in the sys- 

 tem of Saccardo. Considering only the variations of this one 

 stage it will be shown that the fruit body assumes a variety of 

 forms, some of which might be considered sporodochia of the 

 Tubercularia type, while others approach true pycnidia with 

 more or less clearly defined, broad ostioles. 



In size the structures vary from a few conidiophores united in 

 a fascicle with a minute globule of spores at the top, to a disc- 

 shaped body 1 mm. in diameter which is readily visible to the 

 unaided eye. The color may be brown, white, black, pink, yellow, 

 amber, or golden depending upon the host or medium upon which 

 the fungus is growing, the age of the culture, or other conditions 

 of environment. The most common color when dry is some 

 shade of amber. When wet they appear white from the mass of 

 hyaline spores that gathers in a droplet of water and covers the 

 disc." Though ordinarily disc-shaped or patellate the sporodochia 

 may be elongate and slender or even cylindrical. Such forms 

 when dried and capped with a pointed mass of spores were mis- 

 taken by Cooke and Ellis for a Sphaeronema and described as 



