[VoL. 3 
454 ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN 
electric fan blowing a draft of warm air (about 30°C.) over 
it. After being dried the sawdust could be crushed to powder 
between the fingers. This dry sawdust was ground to a very 
fine powder in an ordinary mill. A tared amount of the 
powder was transferred to a clean liter flask, and about 4 parts 
of water by volume were added with about 1 per cent chloro- 
form. This was allowed to stand for 16 hours for the extrac- 
tion of enzymes. Then the solution was filtered off through a 
Buchner funnel, and the enzymes precipitated from the filtrate 
by the addition of 3 volumes of 95 per cent alcohol. The pre- 
cipitate was collected on a filter paper in a Buchner funnel, 
and the paper allowed to dry at room temperature. These 
filter papers were kept in glass-stoppered bottles for future 
use. 
When the enzyme preparation was to be used the filter 
paper was soaked in such a quantity of water that each cubic 
centimeter of the resulting enzyme ‘‘dispersion’’ was equiva- 
lent to 1.5 grams of the original sawdust powder. In the fol- 
lowing work 2 ce. of this dispersion were used in 10 се. of the 
respective substrates. 
PREPARATION OF SPOROPHORES FOR EXTRACTION 
Sporophores of Lenzites saepiaria were collected by the 
writer at Leeper, Missouri. Only the viable, light sepia- 
colored specimens were used in the enzyme work. The tissue 
of the sporophores, after grinding, was treated in the same 
way as described above for the mycelium in sawdust. The 
enzyme preparation was secured in the same way, and 1 се. 
of the enzyme dispersion in water had the value of 1.5 grams 
of the original sporophoral meal. Unless otherwise specified 
in the following pages ‘‘mycelial meal" will refer to the 
original powdered sawdust including mycelium before extrae- 
tion, ‘‘sporophoral meal," the original ground sporophores 
before extraction, ‘‘mycelial dispersion," the dispersion of 
enzymes extracted from the mycelial meal, and ‘‘sporophoral 
dispersion,’’ the dispersion of enzymes extracted from the 
sporophoral meal. 
