TAXONOMY 
271 
The teleutospores are two-celled and 'have thick walls and per¬ 
sistent pedicels. They remain attached to the stubble until the 
following spring and then either one or •both cells composing them 
produce an outgrowth known as a promycelium (nothing but a 
basidium divided transversely into four cells). Each cell of the 
basidium is capable of producing a branch, at the tip of which a 
basidiospore is formed. These basidiospores are blown to the 
Barberry (Berberis) and infect the leaves of this plant. The 
mycelium runs in the intercellular-air-spaces and causes the appear¬ 
ance of a number of small depressions on the upper side of the leaf. 
These in section are a rich chocolate brown and known as sperma- 
gonia. In the center of a spermagonium are produced hyphae, which 
project out to its orifice and obstrict off minute spores called sper¬ 
matid. On the opposite side of the leaf cup-shaped depressions 
are formed, each with a limiting membrane (peridium). Within 
the cup-shaped depression thousands of spores are formed in chains 
closely packed together. These are the aecidiospores'(aeciospores). 
The cluster cup is called an yEcidium (^Ecium). These aecio- 
spores are conveyed to wheat and cause infection, thus completing 
the life cycle. It has been observed that in America the uredospores 
or summer spores may winter over and infect healthy plants, so that 
the Barberry phase is completely eliminated from the life cycle. 
Order 3.— Auriculariales. —The so-called “ear fungi” which occur 
on the bark of many plants, on wooden fences, etc., as auriculate 
growths which when young are jelly-like and brilliantly colored, 
when old, hard, grayish and considerably wrinkled. The ear¬ 
like fruiting body is known as the sporophore. Its internal surface 
is lined with a hymenium or fruiting body consisting of numerous 
four-celled basidia, each of which cuts off at its tip a basidiospore. 
Order 4.— Tremellales. —Saprophytes which live on decaying 
wood as moist, soft, quivering, gelatinous growths becoming later dry 
and horny. 
Sub-class B.— Autobasidiomycetes 
(Mostly fleshy forms characterized by one-celled basidia with generally four, 
occasionally six, eight or two sterigmata each of which cuts off a basidiospore at 
ite tip.) 
