Dale. — Observations on Gymnoascaceae . 593 
sideration Endomyces and Onygena must be omitted, because 
in them such organs are unknown. But in all the other species 
the asci are the product of ascogenous hyphae arising from two 
cells which in every case are in close contact with one another, 
and which in two species, Gymnoascus candidns and Gymnoascns 
Reessii have been seen to actually fuse. Thus the probability 
of a sexual process in the allied genera is increased. 
Evidently, then, the normal origin of the reproductive organs 
in this series is by means of two cells arising as branches, 
either from the same hypha or from two adjacent hyphae. 
But anomalous cases occur, like those described by Eidam in 
G. Reessii (p. 572) and in Ctenomyces (p. 588), in which a single 
branch coils round the parent hypha. Still more abnormal 
cases, which are undoubtedly pathological, are the irregular 
coils like those seen by Eidam in Ctenomyces and by the 
present writer in a starved drop culture of G. Reessii (p. 577 ). 
Such coils never produce asci, but soon degenerate. 
It seems, therefore, as if this series of forms was natural, and 
based, not upon mere resemblances, but upon real affinities. 
