Development and Physiology of Teliospores

Abstract

In moderate climates generally during autumn, the dikaryotic mycelium that forms uredia with urediospores (see Harder, Chapter 11, this volume) begins to differentiate the overwintering spore form of the rusts, the teliospores. Teliospores were first described as fungal spores by the Tulasne brothers (Tulasne and Tulasne, 1847), who called them "perfect," or true spores. De Bary (1865) proposed for these true spores the term "Teleutosporen" because it means spores that appear at the end of the development of the species and may be applied to all homologous organs of rusts (" ... Teleutosporen ... bedeutet Sporen, welche am Ende der Entwicklung der Species auftreten und darum für die homologen Organe sämmtlicher Uredineen anwendbar sind"). Later, Arthur (see Arthur, 1929, 1932) defined the term teliospore, because they are the spores that are formed in the telia, the last fruiting structure of the rusts. More recently, teliospores have been defined as the basidia-producing spores of the rust fungi (Hiratsuka, 1973). The teliospores are important for overwintering of most cereal rosts, and they are largely responsible for the formation of new physiologie races of the rosts (see Anikster and Wahl) 1979). Form and omamentation of teliospores help to categorize the rusts. For a morphological description of the respective cereal rost tehospores; the reader is referred to the manuals of Cummins (1971), Gäumann (1959), and Urban (1969). The older, more general information on teliospores is summarized by Arthur (1929, 1934), Lehmann et al. (1937), Cummins (1959), and Hassebrauk (1962) in their descriptions of the different species. This chapter gathers more recent information on general characteristics of teliospores of cereal rust fungi. Where the information on important aspects is missing for cereal rusts, results from other rosts are included.