E. J. Welsford. 
156 
FERTILIZATION IN ASCOBOLUS FURFURACEUS, 
PERS., 
BY 
E. J. Welsford, F.L.S., 
Botanical Assistant, Royal Holloway College. 
[With Plate IV.] 
I'HHE study of development among the Ascobolaceae began in 
h 1866 when Woronin (13) gave a brief description of Asco- 
phanus pulcherrimus Cr. (Ascobolus pulcherrimus Cr.) He describes 
the archicarp as a row of swollen cells which he terms a scolecite. 
It becomes enclosed in a sheath of mycelial branches, some of 
which Woronin regards as probably antheridial. In 1871, 
Janczewsld (12) published a somewhat similar account of Ascobolus 
furfuraceus, Pers.; here also the scolecite arises as a curved 
multicellular branch, and becomes surrounded, as development 
proceeds, by a dense sheath. As in Ascophanus pulcherrimus, the 
earliest branches of the envelope are supposed to be antheridial. 
One of the cells near the apex of the scolecite increases in size and 
gives rise to branches upon which asci are eventually borne. The 
spores were also germinated, but only after they had been passed 
through the alimentary canal of an animal. In 1896, Harper (8) 
published a fuller account of this species. He described the young 
scolecite as consisting of a row of uninuclear cells connected by large 
pores, and surrounded by a sheath. The cells of the scolecite 
become multinuclear, one of them increases in size, and into it 
nuclei from the other cells migrate through the pores. From the 
large cell branches arise as described by Janczewski, and into them 
the nuclei pass. 
Dangeard (6) however in 1904 stated that the scolecite, even 
in the young stages before the sheath is formed, is multinucleatc. 
The pores described by Harper he regards as evidence of proto¬ 
plasmic connections similar to those found in the vegetative hyphae. 
He asserts that the nuclei do not pass through them, but degen¬ 
erate in situ, except in the case of that cell which eventually gives 
rise to the aseogenous hyphte. 
