In this way we may distinguish, first, vegetative reproduction, the result of discontinuous growth of the tissues and cell-layers of the body as a whole, leading to (I) fission, (2) autotomy, or (3) vegetative budding; secondly, germinal reproduction, the result of the reproductive activity of the archaeocytes or germinal tissue.
If the germ-cells are undifferentiated, the offspring may arise from many cells or from a single cell; the first type is (4) germinal budding, the second is (5) sporogony.
From these facts,, and from those of the sporogony, to be described below, we may regard budding to this type as taking place from the germinal epithelium rather than from ordinary ectoderm.
The buds of Margellium are produced on the manubrium in each of the four interradii, and they arise from the ectoderm, that is to say, the germinal epithelium, which later gives rise to the gonads.
Especially noteworthy in the germinal budding of Margellium is the formation of the entocodon, as in the vegetative budding of the indirect type.