a. en 
PT oe ee 
a 
VOLUME XXXII NUMBER 1 
BOTANICAL: GAZETTE 
JANUARY, 1902 
BINUCLEATE CELLS IN CERTAIN HYMENOMYCETES. 
ROBERT A. HARPER. 
(WITH PLATE 1) 
IncLuDING the basidia and spores, Rosenvinge found that the 
cells of the Basidiomycetes contain from one to many nuclei. 
He was of the opinion that the uninucleated condition is typical 
and that only the uninucleated cells divide, the multinucleate 
condition arising secondarily by division of the originally single 
nucleus of each cell. 
Two notes by R. Maire (9, 10) in the Comptes Rendus of July 
g and December 24, 1900, report that the hyphal cells of the 
young carpophore in a large series of Hymenomycetes are 
regularly binucleated. This discovery throws a new light on the 
question as to the nature of the nuclear fusions in the basidium, 
and indeed on the whole question of the morphology of the 
carpophore. In view of the many times suspected relationship 
of the Basidiomycetes and Ascomycetes and the seemingly 
natural assumption of the equivalence of the nuclear fusions in 
the ascus and basidium, my own work on the ascus led me to 
desire further confirmation of the results given by Maire, and 
especially further light on the number and nature of the nuclei 
in the mycelium as well as the carpophore of the Hymeno- 
mycetes. In his first note Maire describes obseryations on a 
series of nine genera of Agaricineae, Polyporeae, etc., In all these 
genera he finds that the mycelial cells of the young carpophore 
I 
