138 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



about 16,000,000,000,000 spores. 1 These, if the Mushroom had 

 been left undisturbed, would have been liberated in about six days. 

 It thus appears that a large Mushroom liberates in about six days 

 only about one three-hundred-and-thirtieth of the number of spores 

 produced by a large Fomes applanatus fruit-body in six months. 



(4) A fruit-body of Polyporus squamosus, as estimated by the 

 haemocytometer method, produced 44,450,000 spores from one 

 square centimetre of its pored surface in about a week, the fungus 

 having been separated from the tree on which it grew. Taking 

 the area of the fruit-body as 250 square centimetres (many fruit- 

 bodies of this species have a much larger area than this), the total 

 number of spores which the fruit-body produced must have been 

 about 11,000,000,000. 2 A fruit-body of Polyporus squamosus, as 

 large as the fruit-body of Fomes applanatus investigated by White, 

 with the same basis of calculation as before, would have shed 

 44,450,000,000. I suspect, however, that this total is somewhat 

 too small, for the spores of the spore-deposit were collected under 

 artificial conditions and during a period which must have been 

 several days shorter than the full spore-discharge period. 3 It 

 would, I think, be safe to say that a large fruit-body of Polyporus 

 squamosus produces at least 50,000,000,000 in the fourteen to 

 twenty-one days of its spore-discharge period. This great total, 

 however, is only about one-hundredth of the total number of spores 

 produced by White's large Fomes applanatus fruit-body in six 

 months. 



(5) A fruit-body of Daedalea confragosa, severed from a log of 

 wood and having a pored area of about 2 square inches only, shed 

 during its spore-discharge period of one week 682,000,000 spores, 4 



1 Vide infra, Chap. XIII, Section: "The Spore-discharge Period and the 

 Number of Spores." 



2 A. H. R. Buller, Researches on Fungi, vol. i, 1909, p. 83. 



3 The full spore-fall period for a large fruit-body of Polyporus squamosus under 

 favourable conditions is from about 14 to 21 days. Vide these Researches, vol. i, 

 1909, pp. 90-92. F. T. Brooks ("Notes on Polyporus squamosus," The New 

 Phytologist, vol. viii, 1909, p. 350) at Cambridge, England, saw spore-clouds 

 issuing from a large fruit-body for ten days after full growth of the pileus had 

 been completed. Doubtless, however, spores were liberated for a few days before 

 the spore-clouds became visible. 



4 These Researches, vol. i, 1909, p. 85. 



