TORREYA 



April, 1917. 

 Vol. 17 No. 4 



SANDY SPOROPHORES 



By Albert A. Hansen 



During the summer of 1916, while botanizing along the sandy 

 shores of Lake Superior in company with Dr. H. C. Cowles, of 

 the University of Chicago, Prof. Winfield Dudgeon, of the 

 Ewing Christian College, India, and others, an old dead pine 

 tree with very peculiar outgrowths was found lying upon the 

 sandy beach. 



At first sight, the outgrowths were thought to be exudations 

 of resin combined w^ith sand. Upon further examination, how- 

 ever, hyphae were found running through the sand, suggesting 

 strongly that the protuberances were really the fruiting bodies 

 of a fungus which had become practically solid bodies of sand, 

 due, perhaps, to the sand particles having become mechanically 

 driven into and mixed with the vegetative tissue of the fungus. 



Specimens were collected by the writer and identified as be- 

 longing to the saprophyte Fomes pinicola (Sw.) Cke. Identifica- 

 tion was rendered possible by the finding of fruiting bodies which 

 had yielded but slightly to the inroads of the sand. In fact, all 

 stages, from almost solid bodies of sand to perfect sporophores, 

 were found. In all these stages, the characteristic shape of the 

 juvenile sporophores of Fomes pinicola was almost perfectly 

 retained. 



The phenomenon is evidently very unusual, since a diligent 

 search through available literature failed to reveal any reference 

 to similar abnormal growths. Specimens have been submitted 

 to Dr. W. A. Murrill and Dr. L. O. Overholts, both of whom 

 agree that they are abnormal sporophores of Fomes pinicola. 

 The phenomenon is new to both of these mycologists. 



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