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The ascocarps can be distinguished into two portions, a mass of sterile or vegetative hyphae forming the main mass of the fruit body, and surrounding the fertile ascogenous hyphae which bear at their ends the asci.

In other cases the ascogenous hyphae arise directly from the vegetative hyphae.

The asci may be derived from the terminal cell of the branches of the ascogenous hyphae, but usually they are derived from the penultimate cell, the tip curving over to form the so-called crozier.

The ordinary mycelium is the gametophyte since it bears the ascogonia and antheridia when present; the ascogenous hyphae with their asci represent the sporophyte since they are derived from the fertilized ascogonium.

The cytological details of development of the perithecia are not well known; most of them appear to develop their ascogenous hyphae in an apogamous way without any connexion with an ascogonium.