178 Barker . — The Morphology and Development of 
interior is filled with such a tangled mass of hyphae and 
structureless material that the lower ones are obscured. 
Some of the hyphae are much larger than others, and are 
much vacuolated. Others are of varying sizes, but filled with 
dense protoplasm. Soon it can be seen that some of the 
latter have become spherical in shape, and in these, after 
a short time, spores are formed, eight spores in each (see 
Fig. 13 , 4 
There can be no doubt that these spore-containing hyphal 
branches are in reality asci. 
The other hyphae and also the walls of the asci soon disin- 
tegrate and the spores are set free in the interior of the 
fructification, mixed with a mass of debris. 
In this way the mature ascocarp is formed. It appears to 
be nothing more than a spherical body, consisting of a struc- 
tureless brown wall enclosing a mass of spores mixed with 
mucilaginous substance. It might certainly be mistaken for 
a sporangium. 
The spores are liberated from this structure by the breaking 
down of the wall. 
The ripe spores are very characteristic in appearance. 
They have a reddish-brown colour, a bright yet almost 
opaque look, and in shape are ovoid with pointed ends. 
Their size is about 8 \x by 4 \x. 
This account of the development of the ascocarp derived 
from the study of living material is supplemented by observa- 
tion of fixed and stained material, an account of which will 
now be given. 
Owing to the comparatively small size of the mature asco- 
carps and the transparency of all stages after mounting whole 
in Canada balsam, very few additional details have been 
gained by the study of series of sections beyond those ob- 
tained by the observation of uncut, stained, and teased 
material ; so that the results of the two methods may well be 
considered together. The series of sections of the various 
stages have an advantage over the teased material in that the 
nuclei are much more conspicuous, and the branching of the 
