1907.J 



Wheeler, Fungus-growing Ants of North America. 



739 



There is the same beautiful, white mycelium with hvplme .6-.8 // in diameter 

 everywhere threading and covering the comb-like leaf-pulp and densely 

 dotted with clusters .2-.3 mm. in diameter of the small spherical or pear- 

 shaped food-bodies (Ivohlrabikopfchen) 3-5.5 pL in diameter. As ]\Ioeller's 

 terms for these structures are rather far-fetched, since to English-speaking 

 peoples at least the kohlrabi is by no means a familiar vegetable, and as the 

 structures really deserve somewhat more dignified or at any rate more tech- 



Fig. 14. Entire fungus garden of Atta texana, about J natural size. (Pliotograph by 

 Messrs. Brues and Melander.) 



nical appellations, I would suggest that the globular swellings of the hyphse 

 be called gongylidia and the grape-like clusters which they form, hromatia. 

 The arrangement of the leaf-pulp at the surface of the gardens in the form 

 of thin walls or plates greatly extends the exposed surface of the substratum, 

 favors the gro^^th of the plant, and thus increases the amount of it that can 

 be raised in a circumscribed cavity. This arrangement also facilitates the 

 control of the fungus and its cultivation and makes it more accessible as 

 food. 



