Note on the Arrangement of the spores in Hymenomycetous Funguses.
On the authority of Link, Fries, Vittadini, and other Continental mycologists, I have, in speaking of the spores of the genera Agaricus, Boletus, Cantharellus, Hydnum, and Clavaria, represented them as enclosed in cases (thecæ or sporanges). But from an interesting memoir, published by Mr. Berkeley in the ‘Annals of Natural History,’ “On the Fructification of the Pileate and Clavate tribes of Hymenomycetous Fungi,” which I had not then perused, it would appear that this arrangement only holds good with respect to Pezizas, Helvellas, and Morels, and not with respect to the above-mentioned genera, the spores of which are attached (generally in a quaternary and star form) to the ends of tubes, to which Mr. Berkeley has given the name of sporophores; a disposition which, as he observes, had been long ago pointed out by the great Florentine mycologist, Micheli. M. Montagne, in his ‘Recherches Anatomiques et Physiologiques sur l’Hymenium,’ while he confirms the fact of a quaternary disposition of the spores in general, thinks that during the first stage of their development they are lodged within the sporiferous tubes, to the mouths of which they afterwards adhere by means of short spiculæ or branchlets.
These, like all other questions connected with the minute reproductive granules of funguses, require for their solution not only the most dexterous manipulation and the aid of the finest modern microscopes, but are likely even then to exercise the ingenuity of the curious.