Classification of Ohio Ascomycetes 
9 
directly. The ascogonium septates after fertilization, and the resulting 
ascogenous structure (ascogenous hypha?) appears at this stage much 
like the septate ascogonium of a lichen. Miss Nichols suspected that 
De Bary might have been mistaken about the ascogonia degenerating and 
the asci arising independently in Xylaria, and that other earlier workers, 
Hartig (4) and Woronin, might have failed to follow the development 
carefully in Roscllinia and Sordaria. If her suspicions are correct, and 
H. B. Brown (14) has since proved them so for a species of Xylaria, 
conditions found in these non-lichen species are somewhat similar to 
those known in lichens with respect to the female reproductive tract. If 
any of the results which indicate that degeneration of the female repro¬ 
ductive tract and the independent origin of ascogenous hyphse and asci 
are reliable, such degenerate conditions would be similar to certain degen¬ 
erate states noted below in certain lichens. 
Miss Dawson (22) has also found, in Poronia punctata, conditions 
much like those reported in lichens by several workers. The female 
reproductive tract consists of a multicellular, coiled hypha surmounted by 
a more slender, muticellular portion which rises a short distance above 
the surface of the stroma. In later stages, the supposed ascogonium is 
absent, and ascogenous hyphse appear. Miss Dawson could not connect 
the last two structures, nor did she find spermagonia. However, she 
considered the female tract similar to that found in lichens, and her 
figures indicate one of the nearest approaches hitherto discovered among 
non-algicolous ascomycetes to conditions well known among lichens, at 
least in regard to appearance of the archicarp. 
Ascogonia not accompanied by trichogynes have been reported for 
Pcltigera, Pcltidca, and Nephroma (Ffinfstuck 37), and it is supposed 
that, in these plants in which spermagonia are absent or rare, the 
apothecia arise apogamously (Fig. 8). Baur (5) has reported similar 
conditions in Solorina saccata, and several other lichens have given prac¬ 
tically like results (see especially Sturgis 60). All of these lichens show 
degeneration of the sexual tracts comparable to that found in some of 
the non-lichen ascomycetes considered above. 
Some slightly different conditions among lichens must be noted. 
The genus Bacomyces seems to present conditions similar to those already 
discussed for other ascomycetes^ from the results of Brooks, those of 
Nienburg, and those of Blackman and Welsford. Nienburg (50) has 
also worked on lichens and found no trichogynes in Bacomyces, nor was 
he sure that he found ascogonia. He thought that the asci might arise 
either from ascogenous hyphse or directly from ascogonia. Spermagonia 
