422 
Freda M. Bachmann 
his theory of a respiratory function of the trichogyne. Zukal (90), 
satisfied that Cornu, Möller and Brefeld had proved the conidial 
nature of liehen spermatia, saw in the trichogyne a boring organ to punc- 
tnre the cortex and a means to secure free access of air to the carpogone 
and later to the primordium of the fruit body. Brooks (15), from his 
study of Gnomonia erythr ostoma Pers., is of the opinion that the tricho- 
gynes in Gnomonia originally functioned as receptive orgaus, bnt have 
later taken on a secondary function, possibly acting as respiratory organs. 
He suggests that the assiniilatory processes of the cells of the host decrease 
until no oxygen is liberated while the evolution of C0 2 continues for a 
time, and that these plienomena may necessitate the growth of liyphae 
through the stomata of the host to the outside atmosphere. But the 
structures which Brooks describes can scarcely all be called trichogynes, 
since he finds them growing out from groups of liyphae in which no asco- 
gones can be seen, or growing from ordinary liyphae which are not massed 
together, or in Connection with the margin of a spermogoninm, and also 
undergoing further development as vegetative liyphae. Since a trichogyne 
is a structure produced by an egg cell or cells and only formed after the 
oogone or ascogone has devcloped, it is difficnlt to see why a branch from 
an ordinary vegetative hypha, merely because it grows to the surface of 
the structure in which the lower part of it is embedded, should be called 
a trichogyne. Whatever the function of these liyphae may be, tliey are 
certainly not trichogynes eitlier morphologically or physiologically. These 
“trichogynes” of Gnomonia erythrostoma as described by Brooks remind 
one of tliose of Gyrophora cylindnca described by Lindau (61), which 
Baur (5) has shown are probably vegetative hyphae or paraphyses. 
The behavior of the trichogyne in Collema pulposum must forever 
end the idea of the trichogyne in lichens being eitlier a respiratory apparatus 
or a boring organ; nor is there any Support whatever for Steiner’s 1 ) Sugge- 
stion that the trichogyne cells are probably ascogone cells whose growth 
energy and ability to produce fertile cells are reduced but whose growth 
is not completely suppressed. Such a condition provides no means for 
fertilization and suggests that apogamy is a. primitive condition. It is 
very evident from my residts that the trichogyne is exactly what it is 
in the red algae, a structure developed from the egg cell to conduct the 
male nucleus to the egg cell. The definite growth of the trichogynes 
toward the spermatia, and the later changes in both ascogones and tricho- 
gynes seem to sliow plainly that the reproductive organs are functional. 
x ) Cited in Just’s Botanischem Jahresbericht. 1901. Abt. I. S. 62. 
