l82 



RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



primary culture was made by rubbing sterilised dung-balls with 

 the spore-bearing gills. Still another method of inoculation was 

 employed in which the stipe was used as the agent. The basal 

 part of the stipe remains living for some hours after* the pileus has 

 perished. It was found that, if tlie basal part of a stipe of a nearly 



exhausted fruit-body is 

 divided up longitudinally 

 into several pieces with a 

 clean scalpel and each piece 

 jjlaced between two steri- 

 lised dung-balls, inoculation 

 readily results from the 

 hyphae. Even better results 

 were obtained with the 

 young stipes of unexpanded 

 fruit-bodies.^ 



The whole of the life- 

 history from discharged 

 spore to discharged spore 

 was usually run through in 

 the horse-dung cultures in 

 from four to seven weeks. 

 Naturally there were con- 

 siderable variations in the 

 length of this period, owing 

 to differences in size, shape, 

 proximity, texture, contents, 

 and water-supply of the dung-balls and owing to variations in the 

 temperature of the laboratory. The most rapid development from 

 spore to spore was accomplished in twenty-three days. In this 

 instance the culture was sterilised by placing it in the steam- 

 steriliser three times on three successive days for one hour each 

 time at 100° C. ; inoculation was effected by allowing spores to 

 fall on to the surface of the dung-balls from a pileus held above 



Fig. 71. — Coprinus sterquilinus. A fruit- 

 body with an elongating stipe. The 

 annulus is being carried upwards at- 

 tached to the base of the pileus. 

 Natural size. 



^ The stipe-method of making pure cultures was worked out by B. M. Duggar. 

 Vide " The Principles of Mushroom growing and Mushroom spawn-making," U.S. 

 Dept. of Agric, Bureau of Plant Industry, Bull. No. 85, 1905. 



