186 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



was discharged. The spore and drop were shot away from the 

 sterigma together, the spore doubtless with the drop clinging to 

 it as in other Hymenomycetes. The four spores of each basidium 

 were discharged successively in the course of a few minutes. 



The horizontal distance to which the spores were discharged 

 before falling vertically in still air was found by measuring the 

 horizontal distance to which spore-deposits extended away from the 

 sides of branches laid flat in a large compressor cell. The maximum 

 horizontal distance of spore-discharge was thus found to be 1- 

 2 mm. This observation tends to show that, in Clavaria, the 

 violence of spore-discharge is equal to, but no greater than, that of 

 the other non-tremelloid Hymenomycetes. The discharge of the 

 spores from the hymenium a horizontal distance of 0*1-0 '2 mm. 

 must aid the spores in being carried away by the wind as it sweeps 

 through the inter-ramal spaces of the fruit-body. 



In the foregoing part of this section, our chief consideration has 

 been with Clavaria. A few words may now be added concerning 

 other genera of Clavarieae. 



Pistillaria resembles an unbranched Clavaria in form, but 

 the clubs occur on dead thistles, grass-stems, leaves, etc., are 

 minute and become rigid when dry. The clubs are either sessile 

 or attenuated downwards into a continuous stem-like base which 

 is not distinctly defined. Doubtless what has been said about the 

 unbranched Clavariae in respect to form and function very generally 

 applies to Pistillaria. 



In Typhula which is usually unbranched, the fertile part of the 

 fruit-body is cylindrical and rarely clavate, and it is raised above 

 the substratum of fallen leaves, etc., by means of a distinct filiform 

 sterile stem. In the upper part of the fruit-body being specialised 

 for the production of spores and the lower part being sterile and 

 specialised for raising the upper fertile part to some distance above 

 the substratum, we have an interesting division of labour which 

 finds exact parallels in the sporophores of the pyrenomycetous 

 genera Claviceps and Cordiceps and in the discomycetous genus 

 Geoglossum. The cylindrical rather than clavate form of the 

 fertile portion of Typhula is remarkable ; but this portion is usually 

 very decidedly negatively geotropic so that its hymenium is almost 



