No hyphal penetration of the bright-green algal cell by means of haustoria had been observed by the earlier workers, Bornet[225], Bonnier[226] and others, though they followed Schwendener[227] in regarding the relationship as one of host and parasite. Lindau, also, after long study accepted parasitism as the only adequate explanation of the associated growth, though he never found the fungus actually preying on the alga. In recent years interest in the subject has been revived by the researches of Elenkin[228], a Russian botanist who claims to have established a case for parasitism or rather “endosaprophytism.” He has demonstrated by means of staining reagents the presence in the thallus of large numbers of dead algal cells. A few empty membranes are to be found in the cortex and in the gonidial zone, but the larger proportion occur below the gonidial zone and partly in the medulla. He describes the lower layer as a “necral” or “hyponecral” zone, and he considers that the hyphae draw their nourishment chiefly from dead algal material. The fungus must therefore be regarded in this case as a saprophyte rather than a parasite. The algae, he considers, may have perished from want of sufficient light and air or they may have been destroyed by an enzyme produced by the fungus. The latter he thinks is the more probable, as dead cells are frequently present among the living algae of the gonidial zone. To the action of the enzyme he also attributes the angular deformed appearance of many gonidia and the paler colour and gradual disintegration of their contents which are finally used up as endosaprophytic nourishment by the fungus. Dead algal cells were more easily seen, he tells us, in crustaceous lichens associated with “_Pleurococcus_” or “_Cystococcus_”; they were much less frequent in the larger foliose or fruticose lichens. Dead cells of _Trentepohlia_ were also difficult to find. In a second paper Elenkin records one clear instance of a haustorium entering an algal cell, and says he found some evidence of hyphal branches penetrating otherwise uninjured gonidia, round holes being visible in their outer wall, but he holds that it is the cell-wall of the alga that is mainly dissolved by the ferment and then used as food by the hyphae.