134 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



many fruit-bodies of Agaricineae the declination of the gill surfaces 

 from the vertical is only from one to three degrees. 



Whilst reflecting on the adhesiveness of the spores and the ver- 

 tical position of the hymenial surfaces, I asked myself the question : 

 By what means are the spores enabled to fall from the basidia without 

 contact with one another, and in such a manner that they find their 

 way down hymenial tubes or between gills without becoming attached 

 to the sides ? Taking into consideration that the horizontal basidia 

 are crowded one above the other (cf. Fig. 56, p. 165, and Plate L, 

 Fig. 3), it was argued that if the adhesive spores merely fell from 

 the sterigmata in a passive manner, they would very frequently fall 

 upon one another, and that of necessity they would fall rather 

 inwards toward the hymenial surface than outwards, owing to the 

 tendency they would have to swing beneath the sterigmata. On the 

 assumption of passive fall it seemed impossible to imagine how the 

 adhesive spores could be liberated. Before any observations were 

 made, therefore, it appeared to me highly probable that in some 

 manner the spores must be projected for a short distance straight out 

 from the hymenium in which they are produced. This deduction 

 has been verified in various ways. My observations seem to indicate 

 that violent spore-projection is of general occurrence throughout the 

 Hymenomycetes. 



So far as I am aware, hitherto Brefeld alone has made observa- 

 tions on the separation of spores from the basidia. In the case of 

 Amanita muscaria 1 he simply says, "In diese [the spaces between 

 the gills] werden die Sporen durch schwache Ejaculation geworfen 

 und fallen dann zu Boden." In a footnote in his account of the 

 life-history of Coprinus stercorarius, 2 he states that the spores are 

 shot outwards in consequence of the bursting of the sterigmata. He 

 believes himself to have seen small drops left on the sterigmata, and 

 also on the spores after spore-discharge, and states that all four 

 spores are shot off from a basidium simultaneously. With regard to 

 violent spore-ejaculation being a fact, I am in entire agreement with 

 Brefeld, but am unable to confirm his description of the process in 

 detail. The spores, so far as my experience with several species of 



1 Brefeld, Botanische Untersvchungen iiber Schimmelpihe, III. Heft, p. 132. 



2 Brefeld, loc. cit., pp. 65, 66. 



