[BULLER & CAMERON] HYMENOMYCETES 75 
Hitherto the material used for testing the latency of life in plants 
appears to have been limited to seeds and fungus spores. It seemed to 
the authors that it would be of interest to extend these investigations 
to the fruit-bodies of the Hymenomycetes, and the following is an 
account of the experiments we have made. 
~ Some fruit-bodies of Schizophyllum commune were collected from 
stumps in a wood near Winnipeg in October, 1909. The material, 
which had recently developed when gathered, was brought to the 
laboratory, and allowed to dry by exposure to air. Experiments were 
begun on these fruit-bodies after they had been kept dry and exposed 
to ordinary air at room temperature for one year and two months. 
Their vitality was tested in the following manner. Some of them were 
placed in a damp-chamber, with wet cotton-wool on their upper surface. 
The two halves of each split gill re-apposed themselves to form complete 
gills,t and within twelve hours spore discharge had begun, and it con- 
tinued for several days. The fact of spore-discharge was proved by 
the “beam of light” method,’ which Buller has shown is of great con- 
venience and certainty in testing for the retention of the vitality of 
fungus fruit-bodies. Spore-discharge is in itself an active vital process” 
and the spores falling from such fruit-bodies readily germinate. 
Others of the dried fruit-bodies were then tested for retention of 
vitality when completely dried and kept in vacuo. Hach fruit-body was 
placed in a glass tube about 0-5 inch wide and 8 inches long, which had 
been previously closed at one end. A series of twelve such tubes were 
sealed to a phosphorus pentoxide tube in connection with a Topler 
mercury pump—the von Antropoff® modification. In order to complete 
the desiccation of the fruit-bodies, they were left in contact with the 
tube containing phosphorus pentoxide for twenty-four hours at a pres- 
sure of about 20 millimetres of mercury. The whole apparatus was then 
exhausted as completely as possible, and the twelve tubes were sealed 
off successfully at a vacuum of less than one-tenth of a millimetre 
pressure of mercury. The tubes were sealed up on December 10th, 1910, 
and were kept in the dark at room temperatures. 
Up to the present time three of the tubes have been opened, one 
after one week, one after fourteen weeks, and one after one year and four 
and a half months. In each case the tube was joined to the evacuation 
apparatus by means of rubber pressure-tubing, the apparatus evacuated, 
and the end of the glass tube broken within the pressure tubing. A 
manometer, previously joined to the apparatus, showed no observable 


! Cf. Buller, “ Researches on Fungi,” p. 117. 
> Buller, loc. cit., pp. 94-101. 
8 yon Antropoff, “Eine vereinfachte und verbesserte Form der Tôplerschen 
Quecksilberluftpumpe,’’ Chem. Zeitschr., 1910, 34, 979. 
