60 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
vesiculosa, Galactinia succosa and Ace tabula acetabulum. But 
this hardly seems adequate proof for the conclusion he suggests. 
The origin of the ascocarp in a sexual process is in marked con¬ 
trast to the origin of the carpophore as described above. It 
seems difficult to imagine that they are homologous structures. 
Certainly neither asci nor basidia can be considered as oogonia 
as Dangeard proposes. 
That true cell fusion does not occur in Coprinus is very evi¬ 
dent. It is doubtful husv far this fact should influence our in¬ 
terpretation of the fusion of nuclei in the basidium. Two nuclei 
of more or less widely separated origin fuse and this is at least 
a common characteristic of sexual fertilization. Raciborski (19) 
believes that the binucleated cells of the rusts represent a pro¬ 
longed vegetative stage intercalated between the cell fusion and 
the nuclear fusion just as in the zygospore of- Basidiobolus a 
period may intervene between cell and nuclear fusion. He pro¬ 
poses the terra zeugite for all cells in which occurs a fusion of 
nuclei belonging to the same cytoplasmic mass. But the fact 
that the binucleated cells of the Basidiomycetes are not the result 
of actual cell fusion makes it difficult to compare directly the 
delayed fusion in the zygospore of Basidiobolus and the nuclear 
fusion in the basidium. 
Maire proposes to distinguish two types of fusion: “La 
sexualite avec fecundation ’ ’ and ‘ ‘ la sexualite avec mixie. ’ ’ The 
first type is found in the higher plants and animals, where the 
nucleus resulting from the fusion of two sexual nuclei contains 
twice the number of chromosomes contained in either of the 
fusing nuclei. The second type he believes is found in the lower 
plants and in the basidium. In this type the nucleus result¬ 
ing from the fusion of two nuclei has the same number of chro¬ 
mosomes as was contained in each of the fusing nuclei. 
Maire describes the nuclear fusion and division in the basidia 
in Mycena galeriadata, Psatkyrella disseminata and a large num¬ 
ber of other Basidiomycetes. In all of these species he describes 
the two conjugate nuclei as each having two chromosomes and 
states that the fusion nucleus of the basidium in the first divi¬ 
sion has also only two chromosomes. But his figures are some¬ 
what diagrammatic and decidedly inconclusive. On this evi- 
