112 FUNGI. 



and dried them to a certain degree, but did not leave on tho 

 fingers any phosphorescent matter. These parts continued with 

 the same luminous intensity after holding them in the mouth so 

 as to moisten them with saliva ; plunged into water, held to the 

 flame of a candle so that the heat they acquired was very appre- 

 ciable to the touch, they still emitted in the dark a feeble light ; it 

 was the same after being held in water heated to 30 C. ; but put- 

 ting them in water bearing a temperature of 55 C. extinguished 

 them entirely. They are equally extinguished if held in the mouth 

 until they catch the temperature; perhaps, still, it might bo 

 attributed less to the heat which is communicated to them than 

 to the deficiency of sufficient oxygen, because I have seen some 

 stalks, having become dull in the mouth, recover after a few- 

 instants a little of their phosphorescence. A young stalk 

 which had been split lengthwise, and the internal substance of 

 which was very phosphorescent, could imbibe olive oil many 

 times and yet continue for a long time to give a feeble light. 

 By preserving these Jiliizomorpli(B in an adequate state of 

 humidity, I have been able for many evenings to renew the 

 examination of their phosphorescence ; the commencement of 

 dessication, long before they really perish, deprives them of the 

 faculty of giving light. Those which had been dried for more 

 than a month, when plunged into water, commenced to vegetate 

 anew and send forth numerous branches in a few days ; but I 

 could only discover phosphorescence at the surface of these new 

 formations, or very rarely in their immediate neighbourhood, 

 the mother stalks appearing to have lost by dessication their 

 luminous properties, and did not recover them on being recalled 

 to life. These observations prove that what Schmitz has written 

 was not true, that all parts of these fungi were seldom phos- 

 phorescent. 



The luminous phenomenon in question is without doubt more 

 complicated than it appears, and the causes to which we attri- 

 bute it are certainly powerfully modified by the general character 

 of the objects in which they reside. Most of the German 

 botanists give this explanation, others suppose that it forms at 

 first or during its continuance a special matter, in which the 



