130 
THE REPRODUCTION OF ASCOMYCETES. 
functions, the merits of the French botanist remain intact, seeing 
that this theory, destined to be replaced like all theories, had the 
immense merit of being impregnated ^Yith new ideas, and may be 
the origin of important discoveries, such as that of the alternate 
generations (or heterceciee) of the Uredines, which proceeds imme- 
diately from it. 
Spermatia ; their supposed Fecundative Role. — M. Tulasne, in 
two memoirs, the starting point of his studies, made known — 
first among the Lichens, then among the Ascomycetes — a constant 
reproductory apparatus which he calls spennogonia. The sper- 
mogone is filled with small specious bodies which he calls sper- 
matia, which are engendered in great number ; the names owe 
their origin to the idea which the author had of their role in the 
fecundation. This fecundation ought to give place to the produc- 
tion of the spores contained in the thecse. He explains little, 
though, of the way in which it operates. 
Among the Lichens, the spermogonia, which are not abortive 
apothecia, but some perfectly autonomous organs, are sometimes 
brown and very easily seen {Borrera ciliaris, where they are 
especially easy to study), sometimes indistinct, colourless, and 
even immersed in the thallus [Opegraplia) ; they are situated at 
very variable places, more often upon the border of the thallus. 
They contain, in their interior, a kind of crooked filaments, 
simple or slightly ramified, composed of short joints, and each of 
which gives birth, laterally and at its summit, to a spermatium in 
the form of a straight or curved tipcat; the spermatia are at 
times of a different form, elliptical, or rather very slim and curved 
in an arc. It is necessary to guard against confounding with 
them the stylospores, which are, for the rest, rather rare in the 
family of the Lichens. 
A little later M. Tulasne described these same bodies and these 
same organs in the great group of the thecasporous Fungi. He 
published a part of his researches in the “Annales des Sciences 
Naturelles,” 3rd series, 1853, t. xx., p. 129 ; and along with it 
one finds an admirable work entitled “ Selecta Fungorum Car- 
j)ologia.” Here is an exposition of the different modes of repro- 
duction of different vegetables comprised in the group of the 
Pyrenomycetes and of the Discomycetes. 
In each of them one generally finds: — 
1st. — The conceptacles containing thecae, the more often 
octosporous. 
2nd. — The pycnidia, containing stylospores. 
3rd. — The spermogonia, containing some spermatia. 
4th. — The conidia, born at the outside of the whole cavity. 
M. Tulasne establishes the specific identity of these difterent 
forms by proving that they proceed without parasitism from the 
same mycelium ; for the rest, all these apparatus of reproduction, 
