SPORE-DISCHARGE IN THE CLAVARIEAE 181 



Clavaria pistillaris, which I have seen growing at Kenora on 

 the Lake of the Woods, is one of the simplest and at the same 

 time one of the largest species of Clavaria (Fig. 61). It resembles 

 an upright club and grows to a height of from 4 inches to 

 1 foot. The shape of the fruit-body and the upright position which 

 it assumes ensures that the hymenium, just like that of Craterellus 

 cornucopioides, shall look downwards toward the earth. The 

 obconic^form of the fruit-body is undoubtedly favourable to spore- 

 discharge, for the spores, on being shot from the hymenium on 

 the sides of the fruit-body, fall into a space from which they can 

 be easily carried away by the wind. I suspect, as a result of 

 observations made on other smaller species, that there is 

 no hymenium at all on the top of the fruit-body, but up to the 

 present I have had no opportunity of deciding this point by direct 

 investigation. 



An obconic form of the fruit-body, which enables the hymenium 

 to look more or less downwards toward the earth, while especially 

 noticeable in the relatively gigantic Clavaria pistillaris, is also 

 characteristic for Clavaria ligula, C. fistulosa, C. vermicular is, 

 C. rosea, and other unbranched species of Clavaria, as well as for 

 the species included in the genus Pistillaria. A certain saving of 

 fruit-body substance is effected in Clavaria pistillaris by the flesh 

 being loose and cottony in the centre instead of being solid, and in 

 C. fistulosa by the clubs becoming hollow with age. 



The simple clavate fruit-bodies of Clavaria vermicularis (Fig. 62) 

 and C. rosea are not entirely covered with a hymenium, for I have 

 found that no spores whatever are produced either upon their 

 lower, thinner, stalk-like bases or at their apices. In these species, 

 and doubtless generally in others resembling them, the hymenial 

 layer has the form of a more or less vertical hollow cylinder which 

 gradually diminishes in thickness from above downwards. When 

 the axis of a clavate fruit-body is exactly vertical, therefore, the 

 hymenium looks more or less downwards, an arrangement which, 

 as in the gills of the Agaricineae, the tubes of the Polyporeae, and 

 the spines of the Hydneae. favours the liberation of the spores and 

 their dispersion by the wind. When, however, as often happens, 

 the axis of a clavate fruit-body is not quite vertical but is inclined 



