THE SOUND MADE BY FUNGUS GUNS 



329 



large fruit-body, and the fruit-body is usually more or less cup- 

 shaped or wine-glass-shaped. An ascus, when exploding, makes 

 a faint sound ; but this sound is so faint that, if each ascus were 

 fired off in a solitary manner, it might have escaped detection. 

 However, the fruit-bodies of Peziza, Pustularia, Urnula, Otidea, 

 Rhizina, Helvella, and many other Discomycetes exhibit the curious 

 phenomenon known as 

 puffing : when certain 

 conditions surrounding 

 a mature fruit-body 

 are suddenly changed, 

 thousands of asci may 

 explode almost simul- 

 taneously and thus 

 produce a cloud of 

 white spores which can 

 be seen floating away 

 in the air (Fig. 114, 

 p. 234).i The puffing 

 of certain Discomycetes 

 has been heard. Thus 

 Desmazieres,2 in 1845, 

 recorded that the spore- 

 vapour of Helvella 

 ephippium is discharged 

 into the air with a faint 

 report ; de Bary,^ in 

 1884, stated that he 

 had been able to hear " a very perceptible hissing sound produced 

 by large specimens of Peziza acetabulum (Fig. 162) and Helvella 

 crispa (Fig. 163) " ; and Stone,* in 1920, announced that in a 



Fig. 164. — Some of the ear-like fruit-bodies of Otidea 

 leporina. Tliis fungus puffs audibly, when 

 touched. Photographed in England by Somgr- 

 ville Hastings. Natural size. 



1 Vide supra, pp. 227-234. 



2 J. B. H. J. Desmazieres, Plant, crypt. France, 2nd ed., fasc. XIX, 1845, No. 914. 

 Cited from Tulasne. 



^ A. de Bary, Vergleichende Morphologie und Biologic der Pilze, Leipzig, 1884, 

 p. 98. (English Translation, 1887, p. 89.) 



* R. E. Stone, " Upon the Audibility of Spore Discharge in Helvella ekislica,'' 

 Trans. Brit. Mycol. Soc, Vol. VI, 1920, p. 294. 



