160 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



by experiment that slugs and snails will not feed upon the gela- 

 tinous lichen Collema granulosum, the highly gelatinous ball-colonies 

 of the blue-green alga Nostoc commune, or the gelatinous winter 

 buds of the Utriculariae. 1 It is not unlikely, therefore, although 

 experiment alone can decide the matter, that the jelly of tremelloid 

 fruit-bodies, in addition to being useful by absorbing and storing 

 water and as a building material, may also serve to protect the 

 fruit-bodies from the devastation of slugs. 



It has been stated that tremellaceous fruit-bodies, when sup- 

 plied with water after desiccation, revive and recommence the 

 production and liberation of spores. I myself have observed this 

 revival in the laboratory for Auricularia mesenterica after eight 

 months in the dried condition, for Hirneola auricula-judae after 

 five weeks, and for Exidia albida, Dacryomyces deliquescens, and 

 Calocera cornea after a few days or weeks. These observations 

 were incidental, and in none of the species named did I seek to 

 determine the extreme length of time during which the dried 

 fruit-bodies can retain their vitality. In the Tremellineae in 

 general, the vitality of the fruit-bodies, like that of Stereum, Len- 

 zites, Schizophyllum, and Polystictus, is probably always retained 

 for at least a few weeks or months and possibly often for upwards 

 of a year, i.e. sufficiently long to enable the fruit-bodies to tide 

 over any normal period of drought occurring under natural 

 conditions. 



The mode of spore-discharge in the Tremellineae is similar 

 to that in the Agaricineae and other Hymenomycetes. It is true 

 that the gelatinous matrix of the fruit-body extends into the 

 hymenium. However, the basidia are not thereby hindered from 

 carrying out their functions, for the basidium-bodies, although 

 themselves embedded in jelly, produce sterigmata which pierce 

 the outer surface of the jelly and thus come to project freely beyond 

 it. This enables the basidia to develop and discharge their spores 

 in free air in the manner which is normal for all Hymenomycetes. 



The fruit-bodies of the Tremellineae, like non-tremelloid fruit- 

 bodies which revive in moist weather after desiccation, possess 

 basidia which develop and ripen their spores very rapidly. Thus 

 1 Loc. cit., pp. 80-81. 



