hape, equal in size to the
perfect sporidia. Some of the tubercles never pass beyond this stage.

Again, there is a very common fungus which forms black discoid spots
on dead holly leaves, called _Ceuthospora phacidioides_, figured by
Greville in his "Scottish Cryptogamic Flora," which expels a profusion
of minute stylospores; but later in the season, instead of these, we
find the asci and sporidia of _Phacidium ilicis_, so that the two are
forms and conditions the one of the other.

In _Tympanis conspersa_ the spermogonia are much more commonly met
with than the complete fruit. There is a great external resemblance in
them to the ascigerous cups, but there is no evidence that they are
ever transformed into such. The perfect sporidia are also very minute
and numerous, being contained in asci borne in cups, which usually
surround the spermogonia.

In several species of _Dermatea_ the stylospores and spermatia
co-exist, but they are disseminated before the appearance of the
ascigerous receptacles, yet they are produced upon a common stroma not
unlike that of _Tubercularia_.

In its early stage the common and well-known _Bulgaria inquinans_,
which when mature looks like a black _Peziza_, is a little tubercle,
the whole mass of which is divided into ramified lobes, the
extremities of which become, towards the surface of the tubercle,
receptacles from whence escape waves of spermatia which are
colourless, or stylospores mixed with them which are larger and nearly
black.

Amongst the _Sphaeriacei_ numerous instances might be cited of minute
stylosporous bodies in consort with, or preceding, the ascigerous
receptacles. A very familiar example may be found at the base of old
nettle stems in what has been named _Aposphaeria acuta_, but which
truly are only the stylospores of the _Sphaeria coniformis_, the
perithecia of which flourish in company or in close proximity to them.
Most of these bodies are so minute, delicate, and hyaline that the
difficulties in the way of tracing them in their relations to the
bodies with which they are associated are very great. Nevertheless
there is strong presumption in favour of regarding some of them as
performing the functions which the name applied to them indicates.

Professor de Bary cautiously refrains from accepting spermatia other
than as doubtful or at least uncertain sexual bodies.[Q] He says that
the Messrs. Tulasne have supposed that the spermogonia represented the
male sex, a