2 8o RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



according to Cunningham, 1 the same species grows on rotting wood 

 and sticks lying on the forest floor and on rotting sacking. S. stellatus 

 has also been found by Petch 2 on elephant dung in Ceylon and is 

 recorded by Shirai and Hara 3 as occurring in Japan. 



Sphaerobolus was first described and illustrated (Fig. 136) by 

 Micheli 4 in 1729. He discovered that the glebal mass of the fruit- 

 body is composed largely of spores and that the fruit-body, at the 

 climax of its development, shoots away its glebal mass to a con- 

 siderable distance. On account of the violent ejection of the glebal 

 mass, Micheli called the fungus Carpobolus ; but this name was 

 changed by Tode 5 in 1790 to Sphaerobolus. 6 



The structure and discharge-mechanism of Sphaerobolus were 

 described by Greville 7 in 1825, by Corda 8 in 1842, by Bonorden 9 

 in 1851, and in greater detail by Pitra 10 in 1870. 



The older writers, like ourselves, were of course fascinated by 

 the spectacle of a tiny fungus everting its inner peridium with 

 lightning-like rapidity and casting away its ball of spores. Thus 

 Greville, 11 in treating of Sphaerobolus stellatus in the third volume of 

 his Scottish Cryptogamic Flora, says : " This is unquestionably the 

 most wonderfully constructed plant which it has been my lot to 

 describe in the present publication. That so great a degree of 

 force should exist in a body not larger than the head of a pin, 12 



1 G. H. Cunningham, " Sphaerobolus stellatus Tode, a Fungus with a Remarkable 

 Method of Spore-dissemination," New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology, 

 Vol. VI, 1923, p. 19. 



2 T. Petch, in litt., 1921. 



3 M. Shirai and K. Hara, A List of Japanese Fungi Hitherto Unknown, Edition III, 

 Japan, 1927, p. 368. 



4 P. A. Micheli, Nova Plantarum Genera, Florentiae, 1729, p. 221, Tab. CI. 



5 H. J. Tode, Fungi Mecklenburgenses Selecti, Luneburgi, 1790, p. 43. 



6 The name Sphaerobolus is derived from acpccipa, a ball, and (3aXXa>, I throw. 



7 R. K. Greville, Scottish Cryptogamic Flora, Edinburgh, Vol. Ill, 1825, No. 158, 

 one coloured Plate with 14 Figs. 



8 A. C. J. Corda, Icones Fungorum, Bd. V, 1842, p. 66, Taf. VI. 



9 H. F. Bonorden, " Mykologische Beobachtungen. II. Uber den Bau von 

 Sphaerobolus stellatus,'" Botanische Zeitung, Bd. IX, 1851, p. 18 ; also Handbuch der 

 allgemeinen Mykologie, Stuttgart, 1851, pp. 231-232. 



10 A. Pitra, " Zur Kenntnis des Sphaerobolus stellatus," Botanische Zeitung, 

 Bd. XXVIII, 1870, pp. 681-689, 697-703, 713-719, Taf. XL 



11 R. K. Greville, he. cit. 



12 Greville is here minimising the size of the fungus or his pins had larger heads 

 than those now most commonly used. 



