72 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol. XIII, No. 4, 
(a.) Sperms so far as known ciliated and motile; 
ovules with a pollen-chamber; sporophylls 
in spiral rosettes or aggregated into cones. 
Phylum 13. Cycadophyta. 
(b.) Sperms without cilia, ovules without definite 
pollen-chambers; sporophylls in cones which 
may be highly specialized, or reduced. 
Phylum 14. Strobilophyta. 
b. Carpels or the set of carpels (megasporophylls) 
closed at maturity, with stigmas and with 
ovularies enclosing the ovules and seeds; pollen 
(male gametophytes) falling on the stigma and 
developing long pollen tubes; flowers well devel¬ 
oped, usually with a perianth, often highly 
specialized or reduced. Phylum 15. Anthophyta. 
The following arrangement of the fungi is the result of several 
years of study in attempting to discover the natural relationships 
of the thallophytes without chlorophyll. It is no doubt far from 
what must be the final arrangement, yet it is believed to represent 
the phyletic classification so far as present investigation has indi¬ 
cated lines of sequence and homologies. Where there has been 
no decided evidence to the contrary, the system and terminology 
have not been changed from that which is in rather general use. 
In classifying fungi, as well as other groups, the supposed 
relationships cannot be determined by taking a single character or 
set of characters into consideration but every part and function 
in the entire life cycle must be duly considered. Many essentially 
similar structures and processes have developed entirely inde¬ 
pendently of one another. In recent years, it seems that various 
attempts have been made to read the ordinary antithetic life cycle 
into the higher fungi. It is probable that alternation of generations 
had several independent origins even in the unicellular forms, and 
the original cycle may have been modified in various ways. One 
thing is clearly evident, that it is possible to have an alternation 
of sexual and nonsexual phases with both generations having either 
the haploid or diploid number of chromosomes. 
The lichens have not been distributed farther than the sub¬ 
classes, perhaps not as far as present day knowledge would warrant 
but we need much more morphological and cytological investiga¬ 
tion of both the ordinary Ascomycetae and the Ascolichenes 
before a fairly certain arrangement is possible. 
Whether the Mycophyta, as delimited by the writer, represent 
two main origins and two phyla or whether the Phvcomycetae 
should be joined with the Gonidiophvta are still open questions, 
but there is at least a very serious array of objections against the 
hypothesis that the typical Ascomycetae and the Laboulbenieae 
have had their origin from the red algae rather than from the more 
primitive Gonidiophvta. The marine nature of the red algae, 
with their lack of semiparasitic aerial forms, as well as the 
