Massee: The Evolution of the Basidiomycetes. 49 
is again continued throughout the growing season. Thus the 
original or first form of spore produced by the fungus 'at 
present serves solely for the continuance of the species in 
time, and has nothing whatever to do with its distribution 
in space. It will occur to the mind of the botanist that a 
similar division of labour is presented by ferns and mosses. 
The prothallus is the sexual stage, where the fertilizing bodies 
are motile antherozoids, whereas the fern-plant and the moss, 
as popularly understood, produce asexual spores and serve 
for the dissemination of the plants in space, and correspond 
exactly with the conidial stage of the fungi. Leaving the 
Phycomycetes, the sexual organs in fungi have for the most 
part disappeared, or may remain as vestiges of no functional 
value, and in the sen$e of the primitive method of reproduction, 
has completely disappeared from the largest and most modern 
group, the Basidiomycetes. This fact appears to indicate 
that a sexual mode of reproduction is hot one of the indis- 
pensable factors that it has been considered to be. Neither 
is this feature confined to the fungi, as it is well known that 
in various families of Phanerogams — more especially in the 
most modern orders, as Compositae, etc. — sexuality is being 
abandoned to a large extent, without any apparent incon- 
venience. 
Any attempt to explain the gradual evolution of the 
Basidiomycetes, culminating with the gill-bearing fungi, from 
the primitive Phycomycetes, without the aid of numerous 
figures, is, I think, an impossibility. 
Briefly, when the Phycomycetes first commenced to 
produce the second, or conidial, spore formation, these spores 
in some species, were produced inside a large cell, as species 
of Mucor. This type of conidial reproduction by numerous 
grades of evolution, has resulted in the Ascomycetes. On the 
other hand, the conidial condition of some of the Phyco- 
mycetes have the spores borne at the tips of branches, and 
not enclosed in a cell, or covering. This type in course of 
time settled down to one uniform specialized form of cell 
bearing spores at its tip, and technically called a basidium, 
characteristic of the large section of fungi called Basidio- 
mycetes. 
The above ideas respecting the evolution of the fungi is 
almost entirely based on morphological or structural characters 
and in some instances it may be that analogy does duty for 
homology. Furthermore, cytology does not in all instances 
support current ideas as to affinities. Much more work must 
be done before a true account can be given of the fungi as 
a whole, and the work must bear on every aspect of the life- 
history. I sometimes regret the waste of energy in connection 
with fungus forays. The time spent in endeavouring, with 
1914 Feb. 1. 
