Some recent work on the cytology of fungus reproduction 
265 
one. The presence of large basal cells containing three and four nuclei 
seem against this view as also does the presence at times of a uninucleate 
mycelium and of tri- and tetra-nucleate aecidiospores. Such a range in 
the number of nuclei is certainly rather surprising. 
In the Basidiomycetes Kniep has given an account of results obtained 
in'cultures oi Armiliaria mellea. He sowed various parts of the fungus and 
always obtained a uninucleate mycelium. On this mycelium arose aerial out¬ 
growths which, from their structure and appearance, were obviously basidia. 
The basidia were always uninucleate. The nucleus increased in size. This 
increase in size was not due to a fusion of two nuclei, all possibilities of 
such being the case having been carefully considered. This large nucleus 
underwent two successive divisions which were identical in all their stages 
with the two divisions which occur in normal basidia and are generally 
supposed to constitute reduction divisions. The two bodies which wander 
to the poles during the two divisions Kniep considers, with a certain 
amount of reserve, not as chromosomes but as chromatin bodies which 
have been described as occurring also in certain other thallophytes. In 
the second division the nuclei remain close together. Unfortunately the 
fate of the basidiospore could not be followed. From the stages observed 
during the divisions in the basidium Kniep considers that the nucleus in 
that organ is of diploid nature. He therefore thinks that during the 
life history of the fungus there must have been a fusion of nuclei which 
gave rise to a series of diploid nuclei but unfortunately this fusion was 
not seen by the investigator. 
In connection with this it is interesting to note the occurrence of 
uninucleate basidia in Hygvophorus coni eus. Fries (1911) has worked 
at /. sulphurea of this species. The work of several authors has shown that 
in the majority of cases the young basidium is binucleate. The two 
nuclei fuse later, the fusion nucleus increases in size and then undergoes 
two divisions which resemble the reduction divisions observed in many 
plants. The four resulting nuclei pass into the spores. Species with only 
two nuclei have been studied ( Dacryomyccs spp. Amanita bisporigera 
etc.) but in these cases there has been observed a nuclear fusion and 
two successive divisions, two of the nuclei passing into the spores, the other 
two remaining in the basidium. It is true that Dangeard thinks there 
is only one division, and that apparently an indirect one in the case of 
Dacryomyces deliquescens but Istvanffi, Juel and Maire believe that 
there are the usual divisions in this genus. Maire holds that in this 
species there is a second crop of spores which utilise the second pair of 
nuclei but from Buller’s work on the morphology of basidia this seems 
very unlikely. 
Maire (1902) had previously worked at Hygrocybe (Hygvophorus) 
conica and H. ceracea. He found the cells of the subhymenium and the 
young basidia constantly uninucleate 1 ). He founded a new genus for the 
reception of these species. — Godfrinia which he diagnoses as characterised 
“surtout par ses basides ventrues et constamment bisporiques, uninucléées 
a l’état jeune, ainsi que les cellules du subhymenium”. 
1) Mr. C arleton Rea, Hon. Sec. of the British Mycological Society, informs 
me that the red form of H. conicus in England, always possess^ four sferigmata and 
four spores. I. R. 
