On the Sexuality and Development of the Ascocarp 
in Ascophanus carneus, Pers. 
BY 
E. M. CUTTING, M.A., F.L.S., 
Assistant in Botany , Birkbeck College , London. 
With Plate XXVIII. 
I N 1906, at Prof. V. H. Blackman’s suggestion, I began a search amongst 
the coprophilous Fungi for a form possessing an ascogonium favourable 
for working out the developmental features from its inception up to 
the formation of ascogenous hyphae and asci. About this time Prof. 
Blackman and Miss Fraser (7) had investigated the Ascomycete Humaria 
granulata , and had found that the female nuclei of its unicellular ascogonium 
fused in pairs, and they expressed the opinion that, in this form, this process 
takes the place of the ordinary sexual process which had been described by 
Harper in Sphaerotheca (18, 19) and Pyronema (20). In their paper the 
authors suggested that a similar reduced fertilization might be found to take 
place in the ascogonium of Ascobolus furfuraceus and other forms. 
On the discovery of a well-marked ascogonium, of the type described 
by Woronin (28) as a scolecite, in an ascocarp occurring abundantly, and in 
colonial growths on rabbit’s dung, it was decided to work out the nuclear 
features of the life-history of this species. 
The colour of this fungus, although varying within somewhat wide 
limits, is of a quite characteristic fleshy hue. Occurring abundantly on 
most rabbit’s dung, it is not confined to this medium ; I have found it 
growing on earth where there had recently been a fire and forming a 
patch of so large a size and so densely packed as to give the ground 
a perceptibly fleshy colour even from a distance of several yards. 
From its characters it very obviously belonged to the genus Ascophanus , 
but some little difficulty was experienced in determining whether the species 
was carneus or furfuraceus . These two species would seem to be very 
closely allied, and indeed, Massee, in his British Fungus Flora (23), makes 
furfuraceus a variety of carneus ; moreover, the description of the two species 
given in different systematic works cannot be quite reconciled. In this 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXIII. No. XCI. July, 1909.] - 
