conflitens and the Morphology of the Ascocarp . 343 
the tube have reached their mature size. During subsequent 
growth it is interesting to note that the nuclei of the tube 
do not increase in size as do those in the antheridium and 
oogonium, so that the diameter of these nuclei of the tube 
remains regularly less than that of the nuclei of the sexual 
cells themselves. This condition continues until the nuclei 
of the tube are about to disintegrate, as will be described 
below, when they swell up without increase of their contents 
until they may equal in size the nuclei of the sex-cells, but 
are very transparent. Whether nuclear divisions occur in the 
tube after it is cut off I am not certain. 
Kihlmann has described a button-like granule on the basal 
wall of the conjugating tube next the oogonium. I have 
found in some cases a similar granule or pair of granules 
(Figs, 32 and 18). They are doubtless connected with some 
system of pores by which materials pass from one cell to the 
other. I have found in Ascobolus and other Pezizaceae, as 
well as Pyronema , a row of granules on each side of the septa 
of vegetative hyphae in the hypothecium. I have observed 
them also in the mycelial cells of Pyronema , and very strongly 
developed in the swollen storage-cells of the hypothecium 
(Figs. 2 and 24). 
The tip of the conjugating tube is blunt and rounded at 
first (Fig. 4), but when mature is always narrowed into a beak 
or snout-like projection at its apex. This beak is about one 
half the diameter of the body of the tube and serves as the 
special organ for fusion with the antheridium. When con¬ 
jugation is complete the tube at the point where it narrows 
into this snout is always pressed firmly against the antheri¬ 
dium. The snout on the other hand at first bends slightly 
up and away from the surface of the antheridium, and then 
turns sharply down at its tip, which thus strikes the wall of 
the antheridium again almost at a right angle (Figs. 6, 12, 17, 
and 21). The tip of the tube is pressed closely against the 
antheridium wall and the conjugation-pore is then formed as 
will be described below. This bend in the beak-like end of 
the conjugation-tube is always well shown when the section 
