SPORE-DISCHARGE IN THE TREMELLINEAE 167 



the Agaricineae, since they have dispensed with cross-walls, as 

 more highly evolved than those of the Tremelleae. The non- 

 septation of the basidia of the Agaricineae, etc., seems to me much 

 more wonderful and surprising than the septation of the basidia 

 of the Tremelleae. For various reasons, both morphological and 

 physiological, the septation of a basidium must be considered as 

 a primitive condition and non-septation as a more highly evolved 

 condition. In the Tremelleae the globular form of each basidium- 

 body is made possible by the looseness of the hymenium, the indi- 

 vidual basidia being surrounded by the gelatinous matrix and not 

 pressing against one another. In the Agaricineae, etc., on the other 

 hand, the clavate form of the basidium-body, with the four 

 approximated end-standing sterigmata, is well suited to the com- 

 pactness of the hymenium as a whole, for here the basidia and 

 paraphyses are not isolated from one another but press against 

 one another laterally. It may be that the original primitive sep- 

 tation of the basidia of the non-tremelloid fungi was eliminated as 

 soon as, with the evolution of the compact hymenium, the basidia 

 became clavate and came to have their four sterigmatic mouths 

 placed close together. I am inclined to think that the approxi- 

 mation of the mouths of the sterigmata made it easier for the 

 basidium to send up equal masses of protoplasm into the four 

 spores and thus made possible and advantageous the elimination 

 of the primitive septa. 



In the Dacryomyceteae, the basidia are narrowly cylindrical 

 and bifurcate at their ends into two long arms or sterigmata which 

 pierce through the gelatinous matrix and develop their spores in 

 free air. Here there is no septum dividing the basidium-body 

 into two equal halves ; and in the basidium-body being non- 

 septate, the basidium of the Dacryomyceteae resembles that of the 

 Agaricineae. I take it that the absence of a septum in the basidium 

 of the Dacryomyceteae is correlated with the very narrowly cylin- 

 drical form of the basidium-body and the closely approximated 

 sterigmatic mouths. The protoplasm of the basidium-body, in 

 passing up into the sterigma, enters through two gates which are 

 side by side. It is probably owing to these gates being so close 

 to one another and thus the conditions for entry through both 



