Description
basis of characters of the spore lid which have since been shown by electron microscopy to be invalid (Sprague, 1970) . Despite Debaisieux's (1920) contention that Minchinia is not a valid genus, followed by Lauckner's ( 1 983) excellent review of the history of the genus, in which he supported Debaisieux , Minchinia has continued to be used as a genus. The net result is an array of species with the generic designation of Minchinia, some of which have projections from the spore and some which do not have projections . This confusion also exists for Haplosporidium spp. For example , M. ne/soni became H. ne/soni and M. louisiana became H. louisiana because of the lack of projections . Some species such as H. costate have even experienced shifts from Haplosporidium to Minchinia and back again to Hap/osporidium (Sprague, 1978). Despite the recognition that Minchinia was described from two species of protists, I propose to utilize the genus for species of Haplosporidia which have spores with an external hinged lid and which form projections from the spore which are visible in the light microscope. My reasons are: 1) the genus is well established in the literature and has been used recently (Hillman et al., 1990); 2) it was originally described in part from spores of a haplosporidian with very distinctive structures (i .e. , prominent extensions of a spore with an orifice and lid covering the spore wall orifice); 3) the genus has not been used for other species ; and 4) it would result in less confusion in the literature if another generic name were not introduced. A formal, new IDIA description of the genus will be necessary in the future. It was agreed that no new generic descriptions would be included in this volume. Another component of the controversy over Minchinia vs. Haplosporidium centers around whether or not extensions of the spores can be seen at the light microscope level , and, if so, the significance of the fine structure of the extensions. The problem started with the description of the type species, H. scolopli (Caullery and Mesnil, 1899) Luhe 1900 of the
Type species
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basis of characters of the spore lid which have since been shown by electron microscopy to be invalid (Sprague, 1970) . Despite Debaisieux's (1920) contention that Minchinia is not a valid genus, followed by Lauckner's ( 1 983) excellent review of the history of the genus, in which he supported Debaisieux , Minchinia has continued to be used as a genus. The net result is an array of species with the generic designation of Minchinia, some of which have projections from the spore and some which do not have projections . This confusion also exists for Haplosporidium spp. For example , M. ne/soni became H. ne/soni and M. louisiana became H. louisiana because of the lack of projections . Some species such as H. costate have even experienced shifts from Haplosporidium to Minchinia and back again to Hap/osporidium (Sprague, 1978). Despite the recognition that Minchinia was described from two species of protists, I propose to utilize the genus for species of Haplosporidia which have spores with an external hinged lid and which form projections from the spore which are visible in the light microscope. My reasons are: 1) the genus is well established in the literature and has been used recently (Hillman et al., 1990); 2) it was originally described in part from spores of a haplosporidian with very distinctive structures (i .e. , prominent extensions of a spore with an orifice and lid covering the spore wall orifice); 3) the genus has not been used for other species ; and 4) it would result in less confusion in the literature if another generic name were not introduced. A formal, new IDIA description of the genus will be necessary in the future. It was agreed that no new generic descriptions would be included in this volume. Another component of the controversy over Minchinia vs. Haplosporidium centers around whether or not extensions of the spores can be seen at the light microscope level , and, if so, the significance of the fine structure of the extensions. The problem started with the description of the type species, H. scolopli (Caullery and Mesnil, 1899) Luhe 1900 of the