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RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



very quiet room at the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph he 

 distinctly and repeatedly heard the puffing of Helvella elastica even 

 when the fruit-bodies were several feet distant. 



Observations on the audibility of spore-discharge in Discomycetes 

 have also been made by R. B. Johnstone. ^ This observer collected 

 fruit-bodies of Otidea leporina (Fig. 16^) at Perth, Scotland, in 

 September, 1920, and took to Glasgow half a dozen mature 



Fig. 165. — Sarcoscypha coccinea, a large Discomycete wliich comes up in early spring 

 on sticks and whicli, owing to the very pure and beautiful scarlet colour of its 

 hymenium, is attractive even to children. The puffing of its fruit-bodies when 

 handled was heard by the late E. J. Durand. The fruit-bodies shown were 

 collected near Ottawa by W. S. Odell. Photographed by the Photographic 

 Division of the Geological Survey of Canada. Natural size. 



specimens packed in a box, each one wrapped in paper. The box 

 remained closed for 24 hours. " On opening the box," says John- 

 stone, " the specimens were placed on the table, and I attended to 

 something else. While thus engaged I heard every now and then 

 a slight hissing sound, but, being busy, paid no attention to it, till 

 looking by chance at the table I saw one of the Otideae puff, and 



^ R. B. Johnstone, " Audibility of the Spore Discharge in Otidea leporiTia,'' 

 Trans. Brit. Mycol. Soc, Vol. VII, 1921, p. 86. 



