THE TRANSLOCATION OF PROTOPLASM 121 



was approximately 1-61 cm. The stream was actually longer than 

 this, as the first cells of the stream were not traced and the last cells 

 could not be counted as they had become confused with vaseline 

 and optically hidden at the side of the cover-glass adjacent to the 

 glass ring of the van-Tieghem cell. Already many of the branch- 

 hyphae which were connected with the main channel of flow had 

 become highly vacuolated and had lost most of their protoplasm 

 (Fig. 65, h, i,j, and k), while others had become completely exhausted 

 and had died (m and n). The flow was watched for several hours ; 

 it went on continuously without any halt and without any reversal. 

 Occasionally very small vacuoles were seen to move with the stream, 

 but the free movement of large vacuoles through the pores, such as 

 that already described for Fimetaria Jimicola , was not observed. 



In Volume IV of this work, 1 one of the functions attributed to 

 hyphal fusions is that of facilitating the flow of food materials from 

 one part of a simple or compound mycelium to another where the 

 materials are needed for the production of fruit-bodies, etc. In the 

 compound mycelium illustrated in part in Fig. 65, ocular evidence 

 of this transfer of materials was provided, for the protoplasm was 

 seen to flow through three fusion passage-ways in succession. 



The flow of protoplasm through other fusion passage-ways than 

 those just referred to was observed in other preparations. 



Fig. 65. — Pyronema coufluens. Translocation of protoplasm from one mycelium 

 to another. A : four spores, of which a and b are two, were shot up into a 

 drop of cleared dung-agar and there germinated. The drawing was made 40 

 hours after the spores were sown. The four mycelia, derived from the four 

 spores, became united into a compound mycelium by means of three hyphal 

 fusions of which one, connecting the mycelium a with the mycelium b, is shown 

 at c (c/. B). Protoplasm flowed for several hours rapidly in the direction shown 

 by the short arrows, through the hypha d, through the spore b, through the fusion 

 passage-way c, through the spore a, and through the hypha e. The channel of 

 flow dbcae was part of a main channel consisting of more than 160 cells, 

 including parts of all the four united mycelia, with a length of about 1 • 6 cm. 

 The protoplasm was coming from numerous lateral hyphae which had ceased to 

 grow and were exhausting themselves of protoplasm, and was going to a much 

 branching system of young rapidly growing hyphae. In the part of the compound 

 mycelium shown, the main stream of protoplasm was being fed by streams 

 flowing slowly along the hyphae / and g in the direction shown by the arrows. 

 Already the hyphae h, i, j, k, and I have lost most of their protoplasm and are 

 highly vacuolated, while the hyphae m and n are collapsed and dead. B : is c 

 in A, enlarged, to show more clearly the direction of flow of the protoplasm 

 through the fusion passage-way between a hypha of mycelium a and a hypha of 

 mycelium b. Magnification, 317. 



1 These Researches, Vol. IV, 1931, p. 182. 



