BASIDIA AND THE DISCHARGE OF SPORES 5 



the tops of the sterigmata and that the spores carry part of the 

 fluid contents of the burst basidium with them. Zalewski, 1 who 

 worked with several species of Hymenomycetes, denied that drops 

 are left on the sterigmata after discharge. Without knowing of 

 Zalewski 's observations, I, too, failed to find the drops. In the 

 first volume of this work I said : "At the moment of discharge of 

 the spores from the basidia of Coprinvs comatus, Polyporus squamosus, 

 etc., I have endeavoured to observe drops on the vacant sterigmata, 

 but without success ; nor, by using my Method I, have I been able 

 to detect drops on any spores as soon as they have settled on glass 

 immediately after leaving the basidia." 2 Fayod, in his account 

 of spore-projection, makes no mention of any drop left on a sterigma 

 after spore-discharge or on a discharged spore, but he discovered 

 that in Galera tenera a drop of water is formed at the hilum of 

 the spore (i.e. near the place where the spore joins the sterigma) 

 before discharge takes place. 3 



When the first volume of this work was published, I had not seen 

 any drop arise at the base of a spore. However, in 1910, when study- 

 ing some fruit-bodies of Coprinus curtus with the high power of the 

 microscope, I rediscovered the phenomenon of drop-excretion just 

 before spore-discharge. Afterwards I found that my observations 

 simply confirmed those of Fayod which had been made twenty-two 

 years previously. 4 Further and much more extensive studies of 

 spore-discharge have convinced me that throughout the Hymenomy- 

 cetes it is an invariable rule that, just before a spore is to be violently 

 projected, a water-drop is excreted at its base. The results of my 

 investigations will now be given in detail. 



Calocera cornea has tiny orange-yellow finger-shaped fruit-bodies 

 which are not infrequently seen on decaying stumps of trees in the 



1 Zalewski, loc. cit., p. 266. 



2 A. H. R. Buller, loc. cit., pp. 148-149. 3 V. Fayod, loc. cit. 



4 Fayod's observations on Galera tenera, are recorded in a single paragraph 

 (loc. cit., p. 272) and are not accompanied by any illustrations The first illustra- 

 tions of basidia showing the exact position and size of the water-drops are contained 

 in my paper entitled : " Die Erzeugung und Befreiung der Sporen bei Coprinus 

 sterquilinus;' Jahrb. f. wiss. Bot., Bd. LVI (Pfeffer-Festschrift), 1915, pp. 299-329, 

 Taf. II and III. This paper, written for a volume celebrating Pfeffer's seventieth 

 birthday, was sent to Germany in July, 1914, a fortnight before the outbreak 

 of the war. 



