596 Wager . — The Sexuality of the Fungi. 
of the plant far removed from one another/ it seems to me 
that we could still regard it as comparable physiologically to 
fertilization, just as in Artemia the fusion of the second polar 
body with the egg-nucleus may be regarded as physiologically 
a process of fertilization. In the present state of our know- 
ledge, however, we cannot, I think, regard it with Dangeard as 
a morphologically sexual phenomenon, especially in the light 
of Harper’s researches. 
But it explains, I think, in a satisfactory manner, what has 
always been somewhat of a mystery — how it is that the asexual 
reproductive cells of the Fungi become stimulated to further 
growth and development ; and Strasburger’s statement that 
‘ these arrangements for asexual reproduction were so efficient 
in the Fungi that the result was the disappearance of the 
sexual organs and of sexual reproduction Y receives a further 
interpretation. 
Conclusions. 
The following summary of facts and conclusions drawn 
therefrom indicates the scope of this paper. 
1. In the Phycomycetes we have a true sexuality, consisting 
in the fusion of two nuclei derived from separate more or less 
completely differentiated cells. In its essential characters it 
does not appear to differ from that of higher plants and 
animals. 
2. Before fusion takes place there may be a preliminary 
division of the sexual nuclei (Peronosporeae, Basidiobolus ), or 
it may be absent ( Polyphagus ), but in this case the nuclei 
before fusion lose a considerable amount of stainable substance, 
which appears to pass into the surrounding cytoplasm. 
3. This preliminary division may be connected with chromo- 
some reduction, but the evidence before us is not sufficient to 
enable us to come to any definite conclusions as to its 
theoretical significance. Moreover, the reduction in the number 
1 Strasburger, The Periodic Reduction of the number of the Chromosomes, & c., 
Ann. Bot , vol. viii, 1894, p. 283. 
