SUPPLEMENT 51 



alongside the purely heterotrophic Fungi, inasmuch as they habitually feed 

 on organic substances, though still possessing chlorophyll. 



178, 11. 28-9, delete [BENECKE . . . Fungi.] 



11. 32-4, for The only difference . . . require both, read The only difference 

 is that Fungi can do without calcium, which higher plants require. 



11. 44-8, for REINKE (1883) . . . materials are read REINKE (1883) as 

 well as many more recent investigators. These authors have shown that an 

 extraordinarily large number of carbon-compounds may serve as nutrients to 

 Fungi, e.g. carbohydrates, alcohols, organic acids, both of the aliphatic and 

 benzol series (quinic acid), fats, peptones, and proteids. From these sub- 

 stances the Fungi construct first of all sugars, the materials which are formed 

 by green plants in the process of carbon-dioxide assimilation. These sugars 

 may thus be formed both by constructive metabolism from organic acids 

 and by destructive metabolism from proteid ; in both cases one may speak 

 of a carbon-assimilation in Fungi. If, however, the carbon be offered in the 

 form of sugar the primary process of assimilation is omitted, and only the 

 further transformations of it are carried out. Among Mould Fungi there 

 exist great differences in the capacity for assimilating carbon-compounds. 

 In order to give some idea of these we may quote a few examples where the 

 materials are 



1. 54, for 372 



179, 11. 4-7, delete LABORDE . . . Aspergilhts. 



11. 10-13, delete [Certain Bacteria . . . many Fungi.] 



1. 35 P. 180, 1. 3, for (CORRENS, 1889 . . . extraordinarily permeable. 

 read (CORRENS, 1889 ; MOLISCH, 1893). The adaptation consists in the rise of 

 the pressure within the cells in proportion to the rise in concentration in the 

 culture fluid outside (Lecture XXXIII). Many Water-Bacteria which are 

 adapted to life in quite weak concentrations of sugar behave conversely (KoHN, 

 1906). 



180, 1. 30, for their life read their entire life 



1. 35 P. 181, 1. i, for Many similar examples . . . differentiate ; that 

 read Eurotiopsis gayoni (LABORDE, 1897) can make use of lactic acid, but 

 cannot thrive with tartaric acid and with sugar. The Bacteria which live in 

 hay and are the cause of its ' heating ', such as B. calfactor (MiEHE, 1907), 

 prefer pentoses and dextrine to any other source of carbon. A certain species 

 of Penicillium, according to RAHN (1906), can employ parafnnes as sources of 

 carbon, substances which are quite useless to most other organisms. BEIJERINCK 

 (1903) has made us acquainted with a bacterium, Bacillus oligocarbophilus, 

 which employs the mere traces of unknown organic compounds present in the 

 atmosphere (compare KASERER, 1906, who has, it is true, only to a limited 

 degree elucidated the physiology of this organism). Finally, we have come 

 to know of Bacteria that use methane, and of some even that can work up 

 carbon-dioxide and that, too, without chlorophyll or light. In a word, we 

 shall not go far wrong if we assume that every compound of carbon occurring 

 in nature is employed as a nutrient by some organism or another. 



Under these circumstances it is conceivable that NAGELI'S (1879) attempts 

 to refer its capacity for being assimilated to the composition of the compound 

 must be unsuccessful, or, at most, may lead to definite results in individual 

 cases only (comp. BENECKE in LAFAR'S Mykologie, I, p. 414). 



Although, as we have said, a whole series of Fungi and Bacteria can 

 thrive with the most varied food-stuffs, still they know how to distinguish 

 between them, and that often with a degree of discrimination compared with 



D 2 



