[VoL. 8 
462 ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN 
In 1895 Bourquelot and Hérissey found that the juice ex- 
tracted from the sporophores of Polyporus sulphureus actively 
digested the glucosides, arbutin, amygdalin, aesculin, con- 
iferin, and salicin. Working on Armillaria mellea, Merulius 
lacrymans, and Polyporus squamosus, Kohnstamm (201) 
showed that emulsin is present in the sporophores as well as in 
an extract of the wood decayed by these organisms. Buller 
(206) found the expressed juice of the sporophores of Poly- 
porus squamosus to act similarly toward amygdalin, while 
Bayliss (’08) reported that negative results were obtained 
using an extract of Polystictus versicolor. Reed ('13) re- 
ported it from the mycelium of Glomerella rufomaculans. 
In my experiments a 1 per cent solution of amygdalin was 
used as a substrate. Ten cubic-centimeter portions of this 
were placed in test-tubes, and 2 cc. of the enzyme dispersion 
were added to 3 of these and 1 was boiled. In another, 10 ce. 
of the amygdalin solution were diluted with 2 со. of distilled 
water as a control. To all was added toluol as an antiseptic. 
All were incubated at 25-30°C. for 3 days. After incubation 
the two regulars reduced Fehling’s solution, gave a strong 
odor of benzaldehyde and the Prussian blue test for hydro- 
cyanic acid. The boiled control and water control gave none 
of these tests. The Prussian blue test was not quite as pro- 
nounced in the sporophoral as in the mycelial material. 
The biological importance of the presence of emulsin in 
L. saepiaria is interesting, since we know that the pine, upon 
which the fungus grows most readily, contains coniferin. 
When coniferin is hydrolyzed by emulsin it yields glucose and 
coniferyl alcohol. The latter, through the action of oxidases, 
yields vanillin. Glucose is thus made available by the action 
of emulsin. 
Blocks of wood which had been in cultures for one year, 
during which period they were always saturated with water, 
were decayed only over the surface. When these were dried 
in an oven at 65°C. erystals of vanillin were collected over 
the surface of the blocks and the interior of, as well as about, 
the apertures of the oven. When the blocks were decayed 
under moderate moisture conditions no such sublimation of 
