40 
aud cut off these small bodies ou all sides. In fresh juice pressed from 
a ripe plum the gonidia grow into branched, many-celled germ tubes, 
whose cells at once swell up into large spheres and easily anastomose. 
Finally, in plum and raisin decoction the gonidia produce long, sepa¬ 
rate, often anastomosing branched hyplire, which when transferred 
into pure water again produce the globose sporidia, although they do 
not do so in the other media. 
These gonidia are carried by the wind to the stigmas of the Vaccin- 
ium flowers, where they germinate. The germ tubes follow the path of 
the pollen tube, grow down into the ovary, and there develop into a 
sclerotium-forming mycelium. The cells of the ovary first become filled 
with a sclerotium-like mass, and the ends of the hyphse form a palisade- 
like layer against the ovary wall. Later branches of the hyphse break 
through into this wall and form a sclerotium there also. In the mean 
time some of the central portion has disappeared, so that the complete 
mature sclerotium is hollow and is composed of two layers, the inner one 
consisting of the palisade portion of the mass within the ovary cells, 
and the outer of the pericarp permeated by the fungous mass. 
A sclerotium Anally develops in every infected berry. Instead of 
ripening,the berries become dark colored, fall from the plant at the end 
of the summer, and remain under the snow without any noticeable 
change through the winter. 
In the spring, just after the melting of the snow, primordia are 
produced somewhat below the rind of the outer layer. These do not 
always develop farther, more than one of them growing out into chest¬ 
nut-brown, long-pedicelled, cup fruits only in occasional instances. 
The apothecia are bell-shaped at first, later they are plate-like, and 
finally the edge sometimes turns downward. When the cup is fully 
formed a shaggy tuft of rhizoids grow out from the base of the stem; 
they serve the plant not only as a support but as an organ for obtain¬ 
ing nourishment. 
The hymenium is composed of paraphyses and asci, the latter being 
formed from the primordia themselves and the former from outgrowths 
of the cells of the outer layer of the sclerotium. The paraphyses are 
fine, simple or dichotomously branched, septate hyphm, whose upper 
free ends are slightly club-shaped aud surrounded by a brown balsam¬ 
like mass. The asci always contain eight ascospores of nearly uniform 
size, all capable of germination. 
Like the gonidia, the ascospores germinate differently according to 
the substratum in which they are sown. In pure water they also cut 
off small, globose, spermatia-like sporidia from their sides. In a plum 
decoction they grow out into long, irregularly formed threads, and swol¬ 
len spherical protuberances. In a decoction of fresh leaves and young 
stems of the Cowberry the ascospores put out one or several tine germ 
tubes, between which and the globose sporidia almost all the interme¬ 
diate stages can be found. 
