BIOLUMINESCENCE IN FUNGI 



Hymenomycetes Known to be Luminescent. 



367 



The following species ^ have been supposed by various observers 

 to be luminescent, but whether or not they emit a light of 

 their own can only be decided by a number of further critical 

 investigations : Fames annosus, Polyporus sulphureus,^ P. citrinus 



^ Apparently synonymous in part with Marasmius sclerotipes Bres. Vide 

 Carleton Rea, British Basidiomycetae, Cambridge, 1922, p. 528. 



2 These are cited by Hans Molisch, loc. cit. 



3 W. G. Smith, in 1871, in a brief note called "Luminous Fungi" {Journal of 

 Botany, vol. ix, 1871, p. 176) states that two years previously he received from a 

 Cardiff coal mine specimens of Fomes annosus vfh.\ch.vf eve luminous and could be seen 

 in the dark at a distance of twenty yards. And he adds : " I have also seen Polyporus 

 sulphureus phosphorescent, and Mr. Broome has met with a luminous Corticium. I 

 have heard that C. coeruleum is sometimes luminous." No one, so far as I know, has 

 corroborated these statements. Up to the present, I have been unable to perceive 

 any luminescence in the fruit-bodies of either Fomes annosus or Polyporus sul- 

 phureus and, until some one succeeds where I have failed, I may perhaps be par- 

 doned for regarding Smith's bare statement that these two species are luminous with 

 some degree of scepticism. It is desirable that other mycologists should examine 

 the fruit-bodies and mycelium of the species in question in the dark and report their 



