No. 36.] 
[June, 1877. 
A QUAETEELY EECOED OF CEYPTOOAMIC BOTANY 
AND ITS LITEEATUEE. 
THE EEPKODUCTION OF THE ASCOMYCETES, 
STYLOSPORES, AND 8PERMATIA. 
By Dr. Max Cornu.* 
I. — The Spermogonia and the Spermatia. 
The discovery of the polymorphism of the thecasporous Fungi, 
Lichens, and Uredines, is certainly one of the most important 
discoveries of the age in the study of the inferior vegetables, and 
M. Tulasne is quite entitled to the praise bestowed upon him by 
M. de Bary, who has called him the Reformer of Mycetology. 
This discovery has, in fact, given a great impetus to the science, 
and has opened new roads where observers may tumble upon 
discoveries, and come to conclusions as remarkable as unex- 
pected. 
The starting point of the idea of polymorphism is the search for 
the sexual organs and the fecundation of Fungi. The idea which 
directed these studies appears to have been that the fecundation 
ought to take place in the adult plant, as is the case among the 
phanerogams ; this is the cause of the want of success in the 
work of botanists in the search for the sexual organs of the Ferns. 
Now, thanks to the observations of different savants — notably 
MM. de Bary, Woronin, and M. Tulasne also — one knows, among 
the young Ascomycetes, the organs analogous to the fecundatory 
organs; and although this question is still not exempt from some 
amount of obscurity, one can say that these facts are henceforth 
acquired by science. I can only, further, verify some upon the 
Fungi as sufficiently different from those which have been hitherto 
examined. 
The ancient sexual theory of the spermatia raised by M. Tulasne 
has been quashed by him — that is to say, overturned by his ulterior 
observations upon the Peziza ( Pyronema) confluens and the Peziza 
melanoloma, but a more complete study will prove that it was really 
the case. 
Notwithstanding this evolution in the appreciation of the sexual 
* Translated from “ Annales des Sciences Naturelles,” ser. 6, vol. hi., 
parts 1-3. 
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