A subroutine may be called using an explicit & prefix. The & is optional in modern Perl, as are parentheses if the subroutine has been predeclared. The & is not optional when just naming the subroutine, such as when it's used as an argument to defined() or undef(). Nor is it optional when you want to do an indirect subroutine call with a subroutine name or reference using the &$subref() or &{$subref}() constructs, although the $subref->() notation solves that problem. See perlref for more about all that.