noun
definition
A fragile spore produced by some fungi.
definition
The fungus Erysiphe necator (= Uncinula necator), which produces powdery mildew in grapes.
Examples of oidia in a Sentence
The oidia of Erysipheae contain fibrosin bodies and the hyphae of Saprolegnieae cellulin bodies, but starch apparently never occurs.
Such gums are formed abundantly in pycnidia, and, absorbing water, swell and carry out the spores in long tendrils, which emerge for days and dry as they reach the air, the glued spores gradually being set free by rain, wind, &c. In oidial chains (Sclerotinia) a minute double wedge of wall-substance arises in the middle lamella between each pair of contiguous oidia, and by its enlargement splits the separating lamella.
In many cases the slimy masses of spermatia (Uredineae), conidia (Claviceps), basidiospores (Phallus, Coprinus), &c., emit more or less powerful odours, which attract flies or other insects, and it has been shown that bees carry the flagrant oidia of Sclerotinia to the stigma of Vaccinium and infect it, and that flies carry away the foetid spores of Phallus, just as pollen is dispersed by such insects.
The former also looks on the ordinary disjointing bacterial cell as an oidium, and it must be admitted that since Brefeld's discovery of the frequency of minute oidia and chlamydospores among the fungi, the probability that some so-called bacteria - and this applies especially to the branching forms accepted by some bacteriologists - are merely reduced fungi is increased.