Germination of chlamydospores was observed for the first time in the Zoopagales, Zygomycetes including the genus Cystopage. The chlamydospores of C. cladospora developed one or two germination tubes showing active protoplasmic movement. The active movement began, at least 24 h before germination, though most of the chlamydospores on the agar plate showed slow movement of protoplasm even in old cultures. The germ tubes, or initial vegetative hyphae, soon captured nematodes if present. The vegetative hypha was found by cinematography to develop a subspherical infection protuberance, 1-2 mm wide, in less than 2 sec at each site of contact with a nematode. The presence of the infection protuberance was also observed for the first time for this species.

Arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) is morphologically divided into two types, Arum and Paris type. The Arum type was dominantly found in herbaceous plants in a vacant land and seedlings of pioneer woody plants in an oil palm plantation, whereas the Paris type was dominant in understory plants in deciduous broadleaved forests. These results suggest that the Arum type could be advantageous to the fast-growing plants, while the Paris type is advantageous to slow growers in shaded condition. A mycorrhizal fungus of an achlorophyllous plant Sciaphila tosaensis forming hyphal coils was revealed to be Glomus sp. by molecular analysis. The hyphal coils of mycorrhizal fungi are also formed in orchid mycorrhiza (OM) . It was first shown in this study that Coprinus spp. and Psathyrella spp. in Coprinaceae form OM in an achlorophyllous orchid, Epipogium roseum. In OM of achlorophyllous orchids, it is considered that nutrients including carbon compounds are transferred from mycorrhizal fungi to plants. It was interesting that morphologically common feature to form hyphal coils to be lysed is found in the two different mycorrhiza, AM in S tosaensis and OM in E roseum, having the same function to transfer carbon compounds from the mycorrhizal fungi to the host plant.

Seven and five species of aquatic hyphomycetes were obtained from spring water of Koganei-shi and Kokubunji-shi in a suburb of Tokyo and from pond water of Shinobazu Pond in the center of Tokyo, respectively in November, 2005. The former seven species were Alatospora acuminata, Lunulospora curvula, Lu. cymbiformis, Tetrachaetum elegans, Tripospermum camelopardus, Trip. myrti and Triscelophorus monosporus, and the latter five were Al acuminata, Anguillospora longissima, Clavatospora tentacula, Lemonniera aquatica and Tetracladium marchalianum. In the microscopic view, the fungi underwater were sporulating on dead maple (Acer palmatum) leaves that had been submerged for 3 to 10 days in meshed plastic bags after aseptic microwave treatments of the leaves. Shinobazu Pond has at least three underground inlets of water, and three of the four sites where the fungi were obtained were close to the water inlets. From the inlets, water flows in continuously or does so at an interval of between one and two months. The dissolved oxygen (DO, in mg/) and pH of the pond water at all sites examined were much higher than those of the three spring water sites in Koganei-shi and Kokubunji-shi.