136 
THE REPRODUCTION OF ASCOMYCETES. 
la the Valsa liplicema M. Tulasne signalises no spermatia 
as in the V. leucostoma^ but some spermatiform stylospores, and 
names the organ which produces them Fycnis spermogonica. He 
has very exactly represented some of the spermatia very clearly 
curved in an arc, notwithstanding the others are, perhaps, a little 
too rectilinear. He has obtained the germination by sowing in 
water ; he has observed also this singular swelling out of the 
spores, which is, in the figure, relatively feeble, although in this 
species the spore can attain up to ten times its primitive diameter. 
I have not been able to obtain any development of the spores in 
pure water. Has M. Tulasne maintained in the water a transverse 
cut of the bark which might have some nutritive elements ? It is 
this germinative faculty which has caused the illustrious mycolo- 
gist to name these spores stylospores, and not spermatia, although 
they possess many of these last, and thus makes a compromise 
between the two opinions, and names them spermatiform stylo- 
spores. The Valsa liphcema is one of the more common species of 
our neighbourhood. 
The general characteristic of this germination in the preceding- 
species is, first, a considerable increase in diameter ; it appears 
that the spermatia behave themselves like the spores which were 
withered, hardened, and which have want quite at first to resume 
their normal form. It does not appear, as in many stylospores 
[Diplodia^ Massaria, Melmiconis, etc.) that they have a primary 
external envelope to burst through in order to emit a germ fila- 
ment; such is, perhaps, the character which distinguishes the 
stylospores from the spermatia. 
After this first swelling out follows the growth of big and 
deformed filaments ; but once the nourishment of the drop is ex- 
hausted, the germination stops. The exactness of this view of the 
matter is clearly evident by the fact that, when these spores are 
accumulated in too great numbers in the same nourishing liquid, 
no development takes place, even in the open air. 
Some very clear and conclusive results were also obtained with 
the spermatia of an Ascomycete, very common at Chaville, upon 
the poplar, the Valsa nivea. 
The spermogonia offer some labyrinthiform cavities, from which 
escape an innumerable quantity of very small, very slender sper- 
matia, and they are curved in an arc. Sown in the nutritive 
liquid, they are not long in swelling entirely, and after twm days 
they have already acquired an oval or irregular form. They become 
elongated at the end of some days, and imitate the spermatia of 
the Diplodia acerina, but they present a little more considerable 
growth. The plasma has entirely changed in appearance ; it 
presents some recognisable prolongations, in place of being dense 
and thiclc, as it was primitively in the interior of the spermatia. 
At the end of nine days, whilst there are some veritable germ fila- 
ments in the nutritive liquid, the spermatia, placed comparatively in 
