nmm sP

BIOLOGY 23
species of Entyloma, and some taxonomists made the presence and absence of
sporidia a basis for the division of the genus into two groups (Plowright, 1889;
CHnton, 1904). Two species, E. matricariae Trail and E. trailii Massee, both on
Matricaria, were separated on the size of the foKar sporidia (Ciferri, 1928).
While it is generally assumed that these sporidia carry the fungus from plant to
plant, few experiments on this means of dispersal have been conducted (see
p. 106).
The discovery (BuUer & Vanterpool, 1925; Vanterpool, 1932; Buller, 1933)
that the allantoid sporidia of Tilletia (Fig. 10/) are violently discharged from the
stalk led Hanna (1938) to examine the sporidial stages of nine species o£ Entyloma
and to grow some of them in culture. In five species, E. menispermi, E. australe,
E. linariae, E. meliloti, and E. ficariae, Hanna found, on the host, sporidia of
two types, filiform and allantoid (sickle-shaped), which corresponded with those
figured by Marshall Ward. E. nymphaeae and E. lobeliae were associated only
with allantoid sporidia, while in E. compositarum and E. polysporum no sporidia
were discovered. The allantoid type, whether produced on the host or in
culture, was shot off by the water-drop method, while the filiform type was not
violently discharged but could be detached by a light touch. In form and size
this type recalls the sporidia that develop on the promyceUum of some species.
The allantoid sporidia of three species were stained and found to be 'for the most
part uninucleate'. They varied in size, even in two cultures isolated from the
same host (Hanna, 1938, Pig. 1 b and c).
The allantoid sporidia oiE. ficariae and E. calendulae were studied by Stempel
(1935), who grew them in culture, and obtained haploid chlamydospores (see
p. 25). In E. calendulae Stempel found still another type which he described as
half-moon-shaped. They were larger and wider than the allantoid sporidia and
carried two nuclei. In culture they gave rise to clamp mycelium (Fig. 1 h) and,
finally, to normal chlamydospores. These sporidia, which are discharged by the
water-drop mechanism, have been found recently both in E. calendulae and its
form dahliae (Sampson, unpubhshed data, see Fig. 1).
Kaiser (1936), studying E. fergussoni on Myosotis palustris, found filiform
sporidia (30-40 X1-5-2 ju) on the upper surface and ellipsoidal sporidia (15-20 X
5-7 fj.) on the lower surface of the leaf. Both types were said to be binucleate.
Plants of Symphytum, sprayed with a suspension of sporidia in water, gave
positive results within ten to twenty-one days, and Kaiser concludes that sporidia
provide an effective means of disseminating the smut of the Boraginaceae.
Though not well known, it seems hkely that a few species of Doassansia
resemble Entyloma in their habit of forming sporidia on the host. SetcheU (1892)
described for D. martm»q^a?ia long, slender sporidia (30x1-5^) which germinated
in situ to give small bunches of tangled hj^hae. In 1941 a leaf of Sagittaria
attacked by Doassansia was found to be discharging allantoid sporidia like the
haploid type found on Calendula (Sampson, unpublished data).
The foliar sporidia of smuts have been confused at times with Hyphomycetes
belonging to the genera Cylindrosporium and Bamularia. In Entyloma oenotherae
on Oenothera lamarkiana the sporidia are described as cyUndrical with a rounded
apex (9-17 x 3-3-5 /x) and are said to remain in short chains as in species of
Ramularia (Marchal & Stemon, 1925). Ciferri (1928) also described a species of
Entyloma which possessed a sporidial stage closely resembling a Ramularia, only