HELIOTROPISM OF ASCI IN DISCOMYCETES 305 



The fruit-bodies of Galactinia badia are often caespitose but 

 sometimes solitary, 3-8 cm. in diameter, brown, and furfuraceous 

 externally. A single fruit-body soon becomes cup-shaped and then, 

 with further expansion, more widely opened until it becomes more 

 or less bowl-shaped or saucer-shaped, with the margin entire or 

 nearly so and the sides of the cup wavy. Below, the fruit-body is 

 contracted into a very short stem-hke base. The upper hymenial 

 surface is fawn-coloured varied with tints of olive and red,^ while 

 the under side is paler brown and minutely granular. The paraphyses 

 are cyhndrical but with the apical 

 cell somewhat thickened at the top, 

 septate, and almost colourless. The 

 asci are cyhndrical, slightly attenu- 

 ated downwards, eight-spored and the 

 spores uniseriate, turning blue with 

 iodine, 320-340 (j. long and 16-18 [a 

 wide. The spores are elliptic-ovoid, 

 colourless, minutely warted externally, 

 containing one or usually two oil- 

 drops, 17-19 [i, long and 9-10 [j. wide. 



Falck 2 found fruit-bodies of Galac- 

 tinia badia on damp sandy open land 

 and, on testing them, observed that 

 they puffed vigorously when blown 



upon, but not when their temperature was raised. In younger 

 specimens puffing could be caused by stroking the hymenium with 

 a hair-pin, but not by blowing upon it. 



I gathered some living fruit-bodies of Galactinia badia from a 

 wood at Minaki, took them to the laboratory at Winnipeg, and there 

 studied them by means of radial-longitudinal sections in the manner 

 already described for Aleuria vesiculosa. 



One of the fruit-bodies investigated is illustrated in Fig. 146. 

 It was found that the asci at the base of the cup were straight and 



^ This description of the colour is taken from Boudier's I cones Mycologicae, 

 Vol. IV, p. 155. Rehm {Discomyceten, p. 1011) states that the discs are lunber- 

 brown or olive-green, and remarks on the variability of the colour as noted by 

 Fries and others. My own specimens were decidedly brown. 



2 R. Falck, loc cit., p. 273. 



VOL. VI. X 



Fig. 



146. — Galactin in badia. 

 One-half of a fruit-body. 

 The arrows indicate the 

 directions in wliicli tlie asci 

 point and, therefore, the 

 directions in whicli the 

 ascospores are discharged. 

 Natural size. 



