NYCTALIS ASTEROPHORA 449 



experiment was repeated successfully by Brefeld.^ The account 

 which Krombholz gives of his observations, translated from the 

 German, is as follows : 



" Some fresh spore-dust from an Asterophora lycoperdoides 

 ( = Nyctalis asterophora) fungus, which was fully developed and had 

 already lost its pellicle, was placed on a young perfectly healthy 

 Kohlenstaubling {A garicus adushis) which had been carefully washed 

 with spring water. Several other Kohlenstaublings taken from the 

 same group of fungi, some of which were cleaned and others not, 

 were then placed along with the inoculated specimen under a bell- jar 

 and left in my work-room in moderate light. On the first day 

 (24 hours after sowing the spores) no change could be observed. 

 After 48 hours, one could see that the still fresh-looking fungus was 

 sweating out some fluid at those places where the spores had been 

 sown. On the third day the little heaps of brown spores had become 

 somewhat pale and covered with a felt- work of fine white threads, 

 which were at first simple and afterwards branched, and which could 

 be detected only with the help of a very strong lens. After from 

 three to four days, the lens revealed a few white points. On the 

 fifth day these had attained a height of ^ to |^ of a line and had 

 taken on a cylindrical form. During the sixth, seventh, and eighth 

 days, owing to the increased destruction of the Kohlenstaubling. 

 some of them pushed up farther and farther. They attained the 

 height of a line, their upper ends became somewhat swollen and, 

 on the ninth day, most of them had a height of l|-2 lines and 

 upwards ; their caps were spherical and floccose, their stalks round 

 and completely formed. 



" Up to now the parasitic fungi were visible only just at those 

 precisely marked spots where the spores had been sown, and at no 

 other place was there any similar development. In the meanwhile 

 most of the unsown specimens of the Kohlenstaubling had gone 

 rotten (zerflossen) ; and, under the same conditions of temperature, 

 light, moisture, and air, they yielded not a trace of any fungus- 

 production, although they had been taken from the same group of 

 fungi as those specimens upon which the spores had been deposited. 

 The inoculated, Asterophora-bearing fungi lived longer and broke 

 ^ O. Brefeld, Untersuchungen iiber Pilze, Leipzig, Heft VIII, 1889, p. 70 et seq. 



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