32 8 Harper.—Sexual Reproduction in Pyronema 
oogonium? and second, are these sexual cells functional, or 
does the egg develop parthenogenetically ? According to 
De Bary’s and my own results both of these questions are 
to be answered affirmatively. As to the first question 
Dangeard’s figures and descriptions are unmistakable. There 
is a sexual apparatus formed consisting of oogonium and 
antheridium as the initial step in the development of the 
ascocarp of Sphaerotheca. As Wager has already pointed 
out, Dangeard admits this fact, and he repeatedly uses the 
term antheridium in naming the structure described as such 
by De Bary. This evidence, coming from an opponent of 
De Bary’s views, must convince the most sceptical that there 
can be no further doubt as to De Bary’s main contention that 
the ascocarp arises from a sexual apparatus, and is to be 
interpreted morphologically as homologous in its origin with 
the sexual reproductive organs of other Fungi and Algae, 
rather than with their asexual fruit-bodies as maintained by 
Brefeld, Van Tieghem and others. Dangeard agrees with De 
Bary that these male and female cells arise from different 
hyphae, and is inclined to think the hyphae may be from 
separate mycelia. With the establishment of the existence of 
an oogonium and egg at the beginning of perithecial develop¬ 
ment Dangeard’s own doctrine that the ascus is an oogonium 
is left entirely unsupported, unless it is assumed that a sexual 
apparatus is formed at two stages in the development of the 
ascocarp, once at its beginning and again when the asci are 
formed at its maturity. This latter assumption is entirely 
forced, and without analogy elsewhere among plants or 
animals. Yet it would seem that Dangeard really supports 
this view, since he expressly states that the assumption of a 
fertilization, as he calls it, in the ascus allows perfect liberty 
of interpretation as to the nature of the archicarps and 
antheridia, which form the initial cells of the ascocarp, and, 
as noted above, he continually uses the term antheridium in 
his description for the cell so named by De Bary. Still it 
is hard to believe that Dangeard holds seriously to the view 
that two sets of sexual organs are present in the development 
