DISPERSAL IN CUP FUNGI 295
Genera" (Fig. 4). This great work was a landmark in the
history of Mycology. Micheli discovered "seeds"—or, as
we should call them to-day, "spores"—in a great many
fungi. Before his time the general view was that fungi
were ''excrementa terrae'', mere products of decay without
the means of reproduction. It is of incidental interest to us
this afternoon that Micheli was the first investigator to pub-
lish a picture of an ascus with its contained spores—although
it is true that he would not get many
marks for his picture in a Botany exam-
ination to-day.
Buller, who has contributed much to
our understanding of the structural
organisation of Cup Fungi, has shown
that if a strong beam of light in an
otherwise dark room is made to pass
horizontally a centimetre or two above
an apothecium of Peziza, discharged
spores make their appearance in the
beam as sparkling motes. During a
puff tens of thousands of spores may be
liberated, but in between puffs a few Puffing from a cup-
asci discharge singly. The spores shot fungus. From Micheli
from a single ascus appear in the beam Nova Plantarum
 Genera, 1729.
simultaneously as eight motes spread
out vertically, and then quickly drift away. Further, when
ripe asci are mounted in water and observed under the micro-
scope, they may be seen to burst and the spores appear to
be discharged all together. In spite of appearances, it is
probable that discharge of the eight ascospores is not quite
simultaneous. The opening through which they must pass
is narrower than the spores themselves, and this must
inevitably lead to successive discharge, although the time
interval between the escape of sister spores must be
a very minute fraction of a second. This apparently
simultaneous discharge is especially a feature of the
Operculate Discomycetes in which the ascus opens by a
hinged lid.
In some Inoperculate Discomycetes, in which the ascus
opens by an apical pore, obvious successive discharge occurs
with very definite intervals between the liberation of sister