sporophores's Usage Examples:

sterile cells; c, cystidium, closed sporophores or with operculum o.

In these sporophores (such as the well-known toadstools and mushrooms where the ordinary vegetative mycelium is underground) we have structures specially developed for bearing the basidiospores and protecting them from rain, 'c.

, are borne on their external surfaces, it is quite consistent to speak of these as compound sporophores, 'c.

Compound sporophores arise when any of the branched or unbranched types of spore-bearing hyphae described above ascend into the air in consort, and are more or less crowded into definite layers, cushions, columns or other complex masses.

Exobasidium) the basidia are borne directly on the ordinary mycelium, but in the majority of cases the basidia are found developed in layers (hymenium) on special sporophores of characteristic form in the various groups.

The recent observations and exceedingly ingenious experiments of Falck have shown that the sporophores of the Basidiomycetesespecially the large sporophores of such forms as Boletus, Polyporus- contain quantities of reserve combustible material which are burnt up by the active metabolism occurring when the fruit-body is ripe.

The same laws apply to the individual hyphae and their branches as to simple sporophores, and as long as the conidia, sporangia, gametes, 'c.

The underground mycelium in many cases spreads wider and wider each year, often in a circular manner, and the sporophores springing from it appear in the form of a ring - the so called fairy rings.