CHAPTER II. — DIFFERENTIATION OF THE THALLUS, SPOROPHORES. 45 



3. SPOROPHORES. 



Section X. The sporophores 1 (Fruchttrager) are branches of the thallus of 

 peculiar form which spring from the mycelium and produce and bear the organs of 

 reproduction. The term organs of reproduction designates the germs of new in- 

 dividuals; by individual we understand the bion as Hackel uses the word, and the 

 mother-cells which immediately produce them. These organs are distinguished 

 according to the particular case by different names, spores, gonidia, basidia, asci, 

 &c, and the structures that bear them may have corresponding names, as gonidio- 

 phores, &c. As a Fungus may have more than one kind of organ of reproduction, 

 as will be shown in the sequel, more than one of the special forms just named may 

 appear on the same species. 



It has been already intimated that the sporophores have been compared with the 

 flowers or inflorescences of phanerogams, because their development usually closes, as 

 in the phanerogams, with the formation of a number of organs of reproduction, by 

 which their growth is limited either absolutely or for a time. This limited growth is 

 accompanied by a form and structure more sharply and characteristically differen- 

 tiated than that of most mycelia, and in many cases by a comparatively large develop- 

 ment. The sporophores therefore are not only the most characteristically constructed 

 part of the plant, but also the most striking on account of their form and size ; hence 

 they used often to be taken for the whole plant, and are also at the present time the 

 chief subject of description in botanical works. 



It follows from what has now been said, that we have to distinguish in the 

 sporophore generally between the points of origin of the organs of reproduction them- 

 selves and the other parts of the structure which may serve them as supports or 

 envelopes or the like, and which in each case bear some conventional name. These 

 parts are almost always raised above the substratum, and are firmly attached to it 

 and fed from it through the mycelium. The mycelium sometimes, not always, has 

 filiform or hair-like organs of attachment, rhizoids, in the shape of branches of the 

 hyphae which spring from the base of the sporophore and complete the provision for 

 its secure attachment and for the supply of nourishment, at least of that part of it 

 which it obtains from water. They have received the name of secondary mycelium from 

 their resemblance to the primary mycelium. It has not been ascertained in any in- 

 stance, whether under favourable conditions they are capable of assuming the normal 

 characters of a mycelium and producing sporophores ; in many Fungi, for example, 



1 [Compounds of the Greek word Kaptrus and such terms as ' fruit ' and ' fructification ' are 

 better used only for structures which have some direct connection with the sexual act ; hence the 

 term 'carpophore,' the more exact translation of the German Fruchttrager, as well as the terms 

 1 fruit ' and ' fructification,' which under this limitation would not convey the sense of Fruchttrager in 

 this place, have been avoided and the more comprehensive expression ' sporophore ' is introduced 

 here as its rendering. Berkeley's specific use of ' sporophore ' for what Leveillc had termed 

 ' basidium ' is no obstacle to the use of the word in the sense here indicated, as the term ' basidium ' 

 is now a generally accepted one. The more recent application of the word ' sporophore ' to 

 designate that stage in the life-history of a plant which is the product of an ovum and which as 

 a whole or in part is concerned with the formation of spores need be no objection to its use here ; 

 the terms ' sporocarp ' and ' sporophyte ' sufficiently denote different cases of that spore-producing 

 stage (see section XXXIII).] 



