INTERFERTILITY STUDIES AND INHERITANCE OF LUMINOSITY IN PANUS STYPTICUS

Abstract

Examination of five collections of Panus stypticus (Bull.) Fries from Europe and of 10 collections from North America has corroborated the findings of other workers that the European form of this fungus is non-luminous and the American form luminous. Series of pairings in all possible combinations of monosporous mycelia from single fruit bodies have shown that both forms are heterothallic and tetrapolar. Pairings between monosporous mycelia of different collections of the American and European forms are fertile. A study of diploid mycelia and fruit bodies of the F₁ generation from crosses between the luminous and non-luminous forms, and of haploid mycelia from an F₁ fruit body produced by such a cross, has shown that luminosity in this species is an inherited character, that it is governed by a single pair of Mendelian factors in which luminosity is dominant over non-luminosity, and that the luminosity factors form all possible combinations with the interfertility factors. A point of special interest in the study of the inheritance of this factor is in its expression as a dominant character in the dikaryotic mycelium and fruit bodies of the F₁ generation.