Ascus synonyms

According to his view, the ascus is in effect the sporangium with several spores, the conidium the sporangiole with but one spore, and that not loose but fused with the sporangiole wall.

The ascus is thus one of the most sharply characterized structures among the fungi.

In a few cases both among the higher and the lower plants, of which the formation of spores in the ascus is a typical example, new cells are formed by the aggregation of portions of the cytoplasm around the nuclei which become delimited from the rest of the cell iontents by a membrane.

Ascus from perithecium containing six spores, X30o.

In young asci a similar fusion of two nuclei occurs, and also in basidia, in each case the nucleus of the ascus or of the basidium resulting from the fusion subsequently giving rise by division to the nuclei of the ascospores and basidiospores respectively.