5 
and which easily separated into their individual members, enabled us 
to recognize in the different forms of smut fungi, to which they belong 
as stages of the development, a different but always definite and typ¬ 
ical appearance, depending on the form and size of their conidia. Thus, 
for example, the sprout conidia in oat smut (Flugbrand) were produced 
from the long egg-form conidia of this smut; the sprout colonies of the 
corn smut were made up of the longer somew T hat spindle-form conidia, 
peculiar to this smut fungus; the sprout aggregations of the millet 
smut had the narrow spindle form of the conidia of this fungus. Even 
in the different species of the smut genus TJstilago , investigated four 
years ago, there were found “as characteristic stages of the develop¬ 
ment,” just as many specific and different sprout forms as are found 
round to elongate conidia of the various sizes. 
In their appearance and in their growth by sprouting these aggregations 
of conidia in the smut fungi are also similar to the large number of those 
long-known fungous forms which , from their characteristic growth and in¬ 
crease by so called sprouting , it has been thought necessary to consider as 
specific forms, and also to specially distinguish as SPROUTING FUNGI. 
They also show themselves fully consonant with the previously known 
sprout fungi in that, like them, they continued sprouting indefinitely, so 
long as they vegetated in congenial nutrient solutions; and in that they 
always remained in sprout form, consequently staid sprouting fungi, 
and passed over into no other form, only at most, not always, pushed 
out into germ tubes, when the nutrient solutions were exhausted. The 
sole difference, a negative one, however, between the newly discovered 
sprout forms of the various smut fungi and the fungus forms previously 
passing current as “sprout fungi” par excellence, which forms we en¬ 
counter so very frequently in our nutrient solutions, and designate briefly 
as “mold (Kahm) fungi,” or “yeast fungi,” could be expressed only as 
follows: We now know the yeast or conidia-sprouts of the smut fungi 
not simply by their endlessly continued sprouting in nutrient solutions; 
we know further through the first beginnings of the culture, the sowed 
smut spores, that they represent nothing but special stages of develop¬ 
ment of the various smut fungi from which they were evolved; so far we 
do not know this of the other sprout fungi, because they have not yet ^ 
been investigated from the right points of departure. From this it fol¬ 
lows, further, that we do not judge correctly when we hold the so-called 
sprout fungi for independent fungi, as has been done hitherto, upon the 
fact alone of their endless sprouting in nutrient solutions. From the 
definite form of their individual members and the definite places of 
sprouting these must rather pass for nothing else than simple conidia 
sprouts of other fungi, consequently for stages in the development of 
higher fungous forms, which when sprouting in nutrient solutions behave 
like independent fungi, in just the same way as do the sprout-conidia 
of the smut fungi. Artificial culture of the different smut fungi in nutri¬ 
ent solutions brought along then in its train as a side issue the obvious solu- 
