88 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



have liberated some 500.000,000 eggs. Of course, only a fraction 

 of these would have been fertilised and rendered capable of 

 developing into adult ling. We have seen that a single fruit- 

 body of Psalliota campestris produced 1,800,000,000 spores, one 

 of Coprinus comatus 5,000,000,000, and one of Polyporus squa- 

 inosus 11,000,000,000, and that each fungus plant has a perennial 

 existence and may produce several fruit-bodies each year. Hence, 

 we may conclude that these fungi are vastly more prolific in 

 the production of cells capable of reproducing their species than 

 even the most prolific kind of fish. The danger of going astray 

 and dying of starvation or other accident appears, therefore, to 

 be even greater in the case of a fungus spore, when entrusted to 

 the sportive winds, than in that of a fish's egg when set free in 

 sea-water and left to the mercy of its currents. 



Bower * has calculated that the output of spores of a strong plant 

 of Nephrodium Filix-mas in a single season approaches 50,000,000. 

 On the other hand, as we have seen, a single large fruit- body of 

 Polyporus squamosus produces at least 10,000,000,000 spores. We 

 may conclude, therefore, that the fungus is vastly more prolific than 

 the fern. 



1 F. O. Bower, The Origin of a Land Flora, London, 1908, p. 23. 



