noun
definition
A compact mass of hardened mycelium stored with reserve food material that, in some higher fungi such as ergot, becomes detached and remains dormant until a favourable opportunity for growth occurs.
Examples of sclerotium in a Sentence
Physiologically, any cell or group of cells separated off from a hypha or unicellular fungus, and capable of itself growing out - germinating - to reproduce the fungus, is a spore; but it is evident that so wide a definition does not exclude the ordinary vegetative cells of sprouting fungi, such as yeasts, or small sclerotium like cell-aggregates of forms like Coniothecium.
In other cases (Diplodia, Aecidium, &c.) conidial or oidial "fructifications" arise by a number of hyphae interweaving themselves into a knot, as if they were forming a sclerotium.
The ear loses its starch, and ceases to grow, and its ovaries become penetrated with the white spongy tissue of the mycelium of the fungus which towards the end of the season forms the sclerotium, in which state the fungus lies dormant through the winter.