CHAPTER XI 



THE VIOLENT PROJECTION OF SPORES FROM THE HYMENIUM— 

 METHODS I., II., III., IV., AND V. 



In order to understand the arrangements for liberating the spores 

 from the fruit-bodies of Hymenomycetes, it is of great importance to 

 bear in mind that the spores are very adhesive. After they have 

 settled on paper, glass, a pileus, or stipe, the most violent shaking 

 will not separate them from the surface to which they have become 

 attached. They cling to each other with great tenacity, for from 

 spore-deposits one may scrape up spore ribbons several millimetres 

 long. If a ripe Mushroom or other fruit-body be turned upside 

 down so that the spores after leaving the sterigmata settle upon the 

 basidia and paraphyses of the hymenium, when the fruit-body is 

 again placed in the natural position not one of the fallen spores 

 succeeds in freeing itself. One can see with the microscope that the 

 spores remain fixed where they fell. When a fruit-body is inverted 

 for an hour, some millions of spores leave the sterigmata and settle 

 on the gills. If the spores were not adhesive, on replacing the fruit- 

 body in its natural position and observing with the beam-of-light 

 method, one should be able to see these millions of spores falling in 

 the form of a dense and very temporary cloud. No such cloud, 

 however, can be detected. These and other observations of various 

 kinds have convinced me that, if a spore after leaving its sterigmata 

 happens to touch the hymenium in its fall, even when it strikes it 

 very obliquely, it immediately gets stuck there, and never succeeds 

 in reaching the outer air. 



In discussing the general structure of the fruit-bodies it was 

 pointed out that in many cases the hymenium is disposed for the 

 most part in almost vertical planes. In the Agaricinete it is situated 

 on the surfaces of very acutely wedge-shaped gills, and in the 

 Polyporete it lines the surfaces of very slightly conical tubes. In 



