Life Cycles, Sexuality, 



and Sexual Mechanisms in the Fungi* 



JOHN R. RAPER,t Department of Botany, 

 University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 



The fungi were once characterized, with considerable justification, 

 as "a mutable and treacherous tribe." Probably no other character- 

 istic or activity of the fungi contributed so prominently to this epi- 

 thet as sex and the phenomena associated with sex. For the better part 

 of a century the problem of sex in fungi has received a great deal of 

 attention among students of the group, and a tremendous literature 

 has accumulated through the years. The problem, however, seems to 

 grow a trifle faster than does the solution, resulting in the interesting 

 situation, like that described by Lewis Carroll, of losing only little 

 ground by running very fast. 



During the early decades of the century numerous scholarly pub- 

 lications summarized the existing information and integrated it into 

 the more comprehensive problem of sexuality in plants and animals. 

 The more notable of these works were Kniep's Die Sexnalitat der 

 niederen Fflanzen of 1928, Gaumann's Vergleichende Morphologie 

 der Pike of 1926, and Dodge's translation and revision of this work in 

 1928, Link's highly intellectual review of reproduction published the 

 following year, and, more recently, Hartmann's Die Sexitalitat, pub- 

 lished in 1943. The implications of sexuality in fungi, however, re- 

 main largely unknown to biologists in general. 



Several fungi, each carefully chosen to combine a number of 

 specifically required characteristics, have recently been used as near- 

 ideal research tools for the elucidation of basic phenomena of uni- 

 versal biological importance. More extended use along these lines, 

 however, depends largely upon a greater awareness among biologists 



* The compilation of material for and the preparation of this review have 

 been materially aided by a grant from the Dr. Wallace C. and Clara A. Abbott 

 Memorial Fund of the University of Chicago. 



f Present address: Biological Laboratories, Harvard University. 



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