230 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



corn and then using their dung for manure is responsible for spreading 

 the smut fungus. The authors find that the spores are mostly killed, 

 only a negligible number remain capable of germination. The most 

 serious danger arises from infected seed, and that can be met by soaking 

 the seeds in some fungicide. Smut spores survive two years ; they only 

 germinate in suitable conditions of moisture. 



Culture of an Edible Fungus. *— L. Matruchot succeeded in 

 developing Pleurotus cornucopioides, a lignicolous agaric, on artificial 

 cultures in the laboratory. He also took sections of an elm tree invaded 

 by the same fungus and buried them in soil which he kept moist. Each 

 piece of wood furnished two or more harvests of Pleurotus. The author 

 emphasizes the economic importance of these methods of obtaining relays 

 of fresh fungi. 



Poisonous Mushrooms. — W. A. Murrill f has written a paper on the 

 noxious forms of fungi in America. The two deadly Agarics there, as in 

 Europe, are Amanita muscarius and A. phalloides. The poisons in both 

 these fungi are alkaloids. Murrill reckons that the deaths due to 

 mistaking poisonous species for edible ones are probably fifty or more 

 each year in the United States ; many of the cases are not reported. A 

 list of species is given with notes as to poisons. 



Gillot % records several cases, due presumably to eating Amanita 

 phalloides, as the fungi had been gathered in a wood where this species 

 was very abundant. Gillot insists on the importance of botanical 

 characters in determining fungi, and warns people against trusting to 

 the " silver test " or to the presence of slugs. He also insists on the 

 necessity of eating fungi in a fresh condition. 



Gallois § also records a fatal case of poisoning due to eating fungi, 

 though it was impossible to find out which species had been taken. The 

 symptoms and course of the attack are described. 



Notes on the Larger Fungi. || — A. Lingelsheim calls attention to 

 a specimen of the Bhizomorpha of Ar miliaria mellea on maple roots 

 which had pushed back the woody tissues and forced its way for about a 

 metre between the wood and the cork ; the cells of the periderm were 

 entirely uninjured. In another case the wood had been penetrated and 

 the Bhizomorpha showed on cross-section an irregular black ring. 



New Species of Bresadolia.lf— P. Magnus has had submitted to 

 him a fungus collected by Mikita Schaposchikoff on roots of beech in 

 North Caucasus and named by N. Schestunoff of Riga, Bresadolia 

 caucasica. Magnus does not dispute its affinity to other species of the 

 genus, but he holds that it is none the less only a monstrous form of 

 Polyporus squamosus. It differs from the latter only in the form of the 

 pores, which are intricately lamelliform. 



* Comptes Rendus, cli. (1910) pp. 1776-7. 



t Mycologia, ii. (1910) pp. 255-64 (2 figs.). 



X Bull. Soc. Mycol. France, xxvi. (1910) pp. 408-14. 



§ Tom. cit., pp. 415-18. 



|| Jabresb. Schles. Ges. Zool.-bot. Sekt., lxxxvii. (1909) pp. 34-5. 



\ Hedwigia, 1. (1910) pp. 100-4 (1 pi.). 



