1916] 
ZELLER—PHYSIOLOGY OF LENZITES SAEPIARIA 467 
decay the wood gives a blue color with zinc chloriodid, after 
which there is a maceration or loosening of the affected walls. 
That the penetration of the walls by the hyphae is the result 
of the excretion of active fluids by the fungus was also brought 
out in this work. 
Not only do basidiomycetous fungi attack the lignified walls, 
but certain filamentous fungi cultivated on wood will pene- 
trate. Miyoshi (’95) found that Penicillium and Botrytis 
penetrated the tracheids of the coniferous wood by boring 
through the bordered pits, while Marshall Ward (’98) showed 
that by growing Penicillium in pure culture on blocks of 
spruce, the fungus could bore deep into the wood by follow- 
ing the medullary rays in which there was reserve starch. 
After these more easily assimilable foods are used up the 
membranes themselves are attacked. Czapek (799%) made 
similar observations simultaneously with Ward. Hartig ob- 
served that the starches disappeared very soon in the presence 
of the mycelium, as compared with the dissolution of the 
lignin, which becomes the predominant activity of the fungus. 
Czapek (’99*) observed that, with alcohol or benzol, a great 
mass of hadromal ean be extraeted directly from wood which 
is destroyed by the inroads of the mycelium of Merulius 
lacrymans, as well as from the wood penetrated by the mycelia 
of Polyporus adustus, Pleurotus pulmonarius, P. ornatus, and 
Armillaria mellea. From sound wood he obtained relatively 
little hadromal. The alcoholic extract from the decayed wood 
gives an exceedingly intense red color with phloroglucin acidi- 
fied with hydrochloric acid. This hadromal test is a perma- 
nent thing in all stages of the decay. The test for cellulose 
by the zine chloriodid begins to appear before the dissolu- 
tion of the membrane. Czapek concludes from this that 
through the action of the fungus the cellulose-hadromal ether 
is broken, and the cellulose and the hadromal are free to give 
their individual reactions. To demonstrate that this activity 
is enzymic, Czapek prepared an extract of the mycelium of 
Merulius lacrymans and Pleurotus pulmonarius from natural 
cultures. Shavings in this extract were incubated at 28°C. 
There was a gradual action, and after 14 days an alcoholic 
