@ BY GEORGE A. HARDY

Provincial Museum, Victoria, B.C.

Production by The Billion

ASS production is a familiar expression in these days of mechanization, but

Nature anticipated our puny efforts aeons ago and still maintains the lead.

Among her many assembly lines that function in this regard are the bracket

fungi which in various forms are to be found at one time or another on almost every

log or tree trunk in our forests, the end product of which are the countless numbers
of spores that constitute the genesis of a new generation.

The prodigal production of living atoms of life—each a single cell containing the
potentiality of growth and specialization to reproduce the organism from which it
came—is common to most lowly forms of life, though by no means confined thereto
whether it be the animal or vegetable kingdom.

While the fungi are notably lavish in the number of spores they develop, they are
by no means the only members of the plant kingdom that are so prolific in the
production of single cells. The number of pollen grains—each a single cell as in a
fungus spore—produced in a favourable season by the Douglas Fir for instance, is
almost beyond computation.

The four species of fungi briefly described in this article have much in common.
Each commences life as a single-celled spore, which gives rise to a system of slender
hollow threads, the mycelium, that permeates the substratum away from the light in
search of food, and all are common in British Columbia. At certain periods of
development the mycelium approaches the surface, where the bracket or other rigid
structure develops. The spores originate here within myriads of tiny vertical tubes
and escape by dropping out of the open end of the tubes to be caught up by air
currents and distributed far and wide. But apart from the similarity of life history
and structure, each species also has a very distinct individuality often more real
than apparent.

The Globe Polypore, Cryptoporus volvatus (Peck) Shear—Cryptoporus = hidden
pores; volvatus = a globe. Type of rot—White rot.

If during the course of a ramble through the woods, a number of toast-brown
puff-ball-like structures are seen dotting the surface of a dead fir tree, it is probable
that they are the brackets of the Globe Polypore, one of our most interesting species,
and a specialist in its class. The somewhat globular little bodies are comparable to
the larger and generally well-known bracket fungi, that is, they are. the fruiting or
spore-bearing stage of this species. The mycelium has fed extensively on the decaying
wood of the dead tree or log, and has come to the surface, usually by way of some
insect burrow, to form the spore-producing body. If one of these little globes is
examined it will be found that the larger or mature ones have a small hole on the
lower part of the undersurface. On cutting through the centre the secret is laid bare,
for a complete little bracket is exposed with a layer of tubes on the underside. It will
be seen that this tube layer has the protection of an outer case or ‘floor’, leaving a
space or Cavity into which the ripe spores are deposited.

The “floor” slopes toward the hole through which the spores escape, probably from
the movements of insects or other mechanical means. It is known that over a dozen
species of beetles and other insects have been found within this cavity, some of which
regularly occur there. One, a true bug (Hemiptera) has a coat of coarse hairs which
entangle the spores among them and by this means they are carried about to fresh
sources of infection. All the insects, of which beetles predominate, are closely
associated with trees in one way or another, hence their activities are undoubtedly
the chief factors in the dissemination of the spores. That the hole does not appear
in the lower casing in young specimens is apparently a device to insure that the
immature pore surface is completely protected from outside interference. This inter-
esting species occurs in North America, China and Japan, but is absent from Europe.

Varnished Bracket, Ganoderma oregonensis Murr. Ganoderma = shiny skin;

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