616 SUMMARY OF QUERENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



moisture, they germinate and grow. The author describes the appear- 

 ance and effect produced by Lenzites on the timber, and then discusses 

 the possibility of killing the fungus. 



Notes on the Higher Fungi.* — R. Scharfetter gives an account 

 of a fungus exhibition held at Villach, in Carinthia, and then discusses 

 various points of interest in connection with the fungi. 1. The dis- 

 semination of spores by wind or by animals ; snails eat the spores, 

 insects carry them about. 2. Animals are attracted by colour, odour, 

 and by the milky juice. 3. Protection against undesired animals is 

 afforded by chemical means — poisons, etc. — and by mechanical spines, 

 suberisation, mucilage formation, etc. 4. Habitat of fungi ; the num- 

 bers in mixed wood are as 3 to 5 in pine wood. 



New Genus of Thelephoreas.f — W. Brinkman makes Thd&phora 

 pallida the type of a new genus, Bresadolina, on account of the smooth 

 colourless spores and cystidia — differing thus from Thelephora, all the 

 species of which have brown, echinulate spores. 



Development of Crucibulum vulgare.ij: — M. Molliard took the peri- 

 'diola of this fungus before they were quite mature, and sowed them 

 on various sterilised substrata — carrot, wood, etc. In closed tubes he 

 obtained only mycelium, but in larger vessels, after two and a half 

 years, the filaments more distinctive of Crucibulum began to be formed, 

 finally the complete plant, entirely normal. One series of plants were 

 grown on cloth made of Phormium tenax, and Molliard was able to 

 demonstrate in that case that the fungus had digested the lignin of the 

 fibres without the aid of any other organism, such as bacteria. 



Variation of Fungi due to Environments — F. L. Stevens and 

 J. G. Hall have proved this variability by making a series of cultures of 

 species belonging to the genera Septoria, AscocTtyta, Volutella, and 

 Sclerotinia. They note the behaviour of these on different substrata, and 

 deduce from their experiments the necessity of cultures in diagnosing 

 fungi. These should be carried out under suitable standard conditions, 

 much after the fashion that bacteria are now studied. 



Method of Sending Pure Cultures of Fungi. || — A. F. Blakeslee draws 

 attention to the trouble experienced when cultures of fungi become 

 contaminated with weed-fungi in tubes, owing to the shaking up of the 

 culture during transmission by post, and the consequent growth of 

 foreign fungi, the spores of which may have been in the cotton plug. He 

 recommends hard agar in the tubes, or, as a simple expedient, taking a 

 sample of the mycelium with sterilised forceps and inclosing it in small 

 paper envelopes, such as are used by druggists in putting up powders. 

 This method has been employed by him for a number of years, and with 

 invariable success. 



* Carinthia, II., xcviii. (1908) pp. 106-26. See also Hedwigia, Beibl., xlviii. 

 (1909) pp. 163-4. 



t Ann. Mycol., vii. (1909) pp. 288-9. 



% Bull. Soc. Bot. France, ix. (1909) pp. 91-6 (1 fig.). 



§ Bot. Gaz., xlviii. (1909) pp. 1-30 (37 figs.). 



|| Science, xxvii. (1908) pp. 960-1. 



