i 7 2 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



had been observed by Lasche (1792), Fischer and Brebeck (1894), 

 Janssens and Mertens (1903), Schimon (1911), and Hansen (1911). 

 Whilst studying them, Fischer and Brebeck, Janssens and Mertens, 

 and Schimon observed that, when a Petri-dish culture of any one 

 of them is inverted, in the course of a few days a sharp picture of 

 the inverted colony is gradually formed on the glass cover owing to 

 the fall of certain cells from the colony, and they referred to this 

 phenomenon as mirror-picture-formation (Spiegelbilderzeugung). 

 Janssens and Mertens recognised that mirror-picture-formation is 

 due to the fall of conidia which are produced on little pedicels. 1 



Kluyver and van Niel 2 cleared up the phenomenon of mirror- 

 picture-formation by showing that the pedicel and conidium produced 

 by a Sporobolomyces cell resemble respectively the sterigma and 

 the basidiospore of one of the Hymenomycetes and that each 

 conidium is discharged by a drop-excretion mechanism of the same 

 nature as that found in the Hymenomycetes and the Uredineae. 



In 1924, as a result of their observations, Kluyver and van Niel 3 

 suggested that the Sporobolomyces species are Basidiomycetes which 

 may be included in the Hemibasidii. In 1926, Lohwag 4 published 

 a paper called Sporobolomyces — lcein Basidiomyzet in which he refused 

 to accept Kluyver and van Niel's suggestion that Sporobolomyces 

 is of basidiomycetous origin. In 1927, Kluyver and van Niel 5 

 replied to Lohwag in a second paper called Sporobolomyces — ein 

 Basidiomyzet ?, in which they maintained that there is no evidence 

 that Sporobolomyces is of ascomycetous origin and that the question 

 whether or not this genus is basidiomycetous is still an open one. 

 Finally, in 1927, Guilliermond 6 announced the results of his 

 cytological and taxonomic study of Sporobolomyces. He found 



1 For a fuller account of the history of Sporobolomyces yeasts previous to 1924 

 and for references to the literature cited in this paragraph vide Kluyver and van 

 Niel, he. cit., pp. 1-5. 



2 A. J. Kluyver and C. B. van Niel, loc. cit., pp. 12-17. 



3 Ibid., pp. ' 19-20. 



4 H. Lohwag, " Sporobolomyces — kein Basidiomyzet," Annales Mycologiei, 

 Vol. XXIV, 1926, pp. 194-202. 



5 A. J. Kluyver and C. B. van Niel, "Sporobolomyces — ein Basidiomyzet ? 

 Annales Mycologiei, Vol. XXV, 1927, pp. 389-394. 



6 A. Guilliermond, " Etude cytologique et taxinomique sur les Levures du genre 

 Sporobolomyces," Bull. Soc. Mye. France, T. XLIII, 1927, pp. 245-258. 



