SPHAEROBOLACEAE 



Characters of the Genus Sphaerobolus 



SPHAEROBOLUS Tode 



Minute plants, growing on rotting wood (common form), on earth (Alabama) 

 and on dung of herbivorous animals (Mississippi, Africa). Fruit bodies subspherical 

 when on wood, breaking through without an exposed mycelium or less often seated on 

 the wood and surrounded and covered when young by the white mycelium. Peridium 

 of several layers, an outer, thick layer of woven hyphae, much like the mycelium; next a 

 pseudoparenchymatous, gelatinous layer (lacking in 5. iowensis), a thin filamentous 

 layer, and, finally a thick highly specialized inner layer of long, densely packed, pris- 

 matic cells radially arranged. This last is sometimes called the receptaculum. The 

 spore-bearing gleba is an inner ball of fertile tissue which at maturity is indistinctly 

 divided into areas by thin sterile plates. In youth these areas may be hollow and lined 

 with a distinct hymenium or stuffed and without a distinct hymenium, depending on the 

 species. However, even in species with stuffed chambers, the basidia are not indis- 

 criminately scattered, but are arranged in definite groups. This with the obvious 

 chambers of S. iowensis clearly indicates a relationship with the Lycoperdaceae, rather 

 than the Sclerodermataceae, as pointed out by Miss Walker. The dark, shining and 

 viscid glebal ball is shot out with force at full maturity by the sudden evagination 

 of the receptaculum. Spores smooth, sessile on the oblong basidia. Gemmae capable 

 of sprouting are also found in the gleba. 



This is the only genus of the family. About eight species have been described but 

 the validity of several of them is doubtful (see Saccardo, Syll. 7, p. 46, and 17, p. 216. 

 For 5. impaticus Boud. see Hollos, p. 185). 



Key to the Species 



Gleba without chambers or well defined hymenium; gelatinous layer present in peridium 



5. stellalus and var. giganteus 

 Gleba before maturity with chambers lined with hymenium; gelatinous layer lacking in peridium 



S. iowensis 



Literature 



Corda. Icon. Fung. 5: 66, pi. 6, fig. 48. 1842. 



Cunningham. Sphaerobolus stellalus Tode. N. Z. Journ. Sci. & Tech. 6: 16, figs. 1-6. 1923. 



Fischer. In Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien l 1 : 346, fig. 182. 1900. 



Fries. Systema Mycologicum 2: 309. 1823. 



Fries, Th. C. E. Sveriges Gasteromyceter, fig. 43. 



Gillet. Champ. Fr. (Gasteromycetes), pi. 2. 



Hollos. Die Gasteromyceten Ungarns, p. 139, pi. 28, figs. 27-30. 



Lloyd. Myc. Notes, p. 431, figs. 24S-247; also pi. 1 1 1. 



Massee. Ann. Bot. 4: 60, pi. 4, figs. 55-55c (mostly from Fischer, Bot Zeit. 42: 1884). 1889. 



Micheli. Nova Plantarum Genera, p. 221, pi. 101. 1729. 



Nees von Esenbeck. Syst. Pilze Schw., pi. 11, fig. 122. 



Pillay. Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte von Sphaerobolus stellalus Tode. Jahrb. der Phil. Fakultat 



II der Universitat Bern 3: 197-219. 1923. 

 Pitra. Zur Kenntnis des Sphaerobolus stellatus. Bot. Zeit. 28: 681, 697, 713. 1870. 



146 



