Were Ascolichens monophyletic in origin, one could more easily suppose that both the fungal and lichen series might have started at some early stage from a common fungal ancestor possessing a well-developed trichogyne which has persisted in lichens, but has been reduced to insignificance in fungi, while fruit development proceeded on parallel lines in both. There is no evidence that such progression has taken place among lichens; the theory of a polyphyletic origin for the different series seems to be unassailable. At the same time, there is no evidence to show in which series symbiosis started first. It is more reasonable to accept the polyphyletic origin, as outlined above, from forms that had already lost the trichogyne, if they ever really possessed it, and to regard the lichen trichogyne as a new organ developing in lichens in response to some requirement of the deep-seated ascogonium. Its sexual function still awaits satisfactory proof, and it is wiser to withhold judgment as to the service it renders to the developing fruit. B. RELATION OF LICHENS TO FUNGI _a._ PYRENOCARPINEAE. In Phycolichens (containing blue-green gonidia) and especially in the gelatinous forms, fructification is nearly always a more or less open apothecium. The general absence of the perithecial type is doubtless due to the gelatinous consistency of the vegetative structure; it is by the aid of moisture that the hymenial elements become turgid enough to secure the ejection of the spores through the narrow ostiole of the perithecium, and this process would be frustrated were the surrounding and enveloping thallus also gelatinous. There is only one minutely foliose or fruticose gelatinous family, the Pyrenidiaceae, in which Pyrenomycetes are established, and the gonidia, even though blue-green, have lost the gelatinous sheath and do not swell up. In Archilichens (with bright-green gonidia), perithecial fruits occur frequently; they are nearly always simple and solitary; in only a few families with a few representatives, is there any approach to the stroma formation so marked among fungi. The single perithecium is generally semi-immersed in the thallus. It may be completely surrounded by a hyphal “entire” wall, either soft and waxy or dark coloured and somewhat carbonaceous. In numerous species the outer protective wall covers only the upper portion that projects beyond the thallus, and such a perithecium is described as “dimidiate,” a type of fruit occurring in several genera, though rare among fungi.