TIIF. FUNGUS. 19 



cultures. Later tests made with spores collected from sporophores 

 brou<];lit into the laboratory in January from wood in the vicinity of 

 St. Louis gave better f^erminations with suo;ar solutions up to and 

 includino; 2 per cent of suj^ar by weio;ht. In these tests the spores 

 showed all of the previously described phenomena. Germination 

 took place in about 30 hours antl about 25 per cent of the spores 

 germinated. The ungerminated spores remained apparently un- 

 changed except for a slight swelling. Recently germination in tap 

 water has been observed by the writer. 



In the cidtme ^^'ork with this and a number of other wood-rottins: 

 fungi in 1903 and 1904 the writer (1905) ioiiiid it much easier to 

 secure cultures from small masses of activeh' growing mycelium 

 than from tlie s])ores themselves. His j^rocedure is to clioose actively 

 sporulating, fruiting bodies, cut small pieces from them, pass 

 quickly through the flame of a Bunsen burner, and plac(^ in a 

 petri dish containing warm agar or gelatin media. If done skill- 

 fully a fair percentage of the ])lates will produce pure colonies of the 

 fungus by the outgrowth of hyphae onto the agar from the original 

 mass of mycelium. The same method may be used with tubes of 

 sterilized wood. Another method is to take small ])ieces of wood 

 which is in the early stages of decay and contains active mycelium 

 and use them in place of the bits of spor(){)hore. 



A large number of such cultures have been made ui)on steriliz<Ml 

 wood in test tubes. ^lany of these cultures, owing to contaminations 

 wliich it was next to impossible to exclude in the field, have failed, 

 and all have failed to produce normal sporophores, which is the 

 experience of others also (Rumbold, 1908); and a few^ cultures have 

 developed spinelike fruiting surfaces instead of the usual gill form. 

 (PI. IX.) This form has been found in natural conditions in the 

 field, as mentioned earlier in this bulletin. 



Rumbold (1908) found that Lenzites sepiaria is very sensitive to 

 alkaline media when grown in pure cultures. A number of different 

 experiments uniformly gave the same results with this species. It 

 was found that even with one-fourth of 1 per cent of sulphuric acid 

 it grew luxuriantly. This chemical has been recently used success- 

 fully as a fungicide in dilute solutions for certain of the fungi 

 (Anon3anous, 1907; Kraemer, 1*906; Spaulding, 190Sb), and formerly 

 was used more or less commonly for the same purj)ose. (Baierlacher, 

 1876; Bouchard, 1896; Degruily, 1895a and 1895b; Gelhn, 1896; 

 Guillemot, 1893; Von Liebenburg, 1880; Lodeman, 1896; McAlimie, 

 1898; Oliver, 1881; Zoebl, 1879.) 



INOCULATIOXS. 



Inoculations have been made \a.t\\ li\dng and actively growing 

 mycelium in various ways to test certain points in the life liistory of 



214 



