56 MYCOLOGY 



I per cent., sul])huric acid 8 per cent., chlorine i per cent. The organic 

 compounds of the carbohydrate group found in fungi are cellulose, 

 grape sugar, glycogen and kinds of gums, mannit, inosit, and several 

 other less important ones. The organic acids include oxalic, malic, 

 acetic, citric, formic, lactic, helvelhc, and propionic acid, as well as other 

 less well-known acids. 



Fats and oils are often present as reserve substance in many repro- 

 ductive spores, as in oospores, zygospores, ascospores, and the like. 

 Large quantities are also often present in the mycelium, as in Lactarius 

 deliciosus, which contain 6 per cent. (5.86 per cent.). Fat is, as a rule, 

 not entirely absent from any species of fungus. Fliickiger gives the 

 fat content of the sclerotium of Clavkeps purpurea as 35 per cent. The 

 mushroom Agariciis campestris has 0,18 per cent, and Helvella esculent a 

 1.65 per cent. 



Resin occurs in fungi in the form of excretions, partly as infiltra- 

 tion of the cell walls, partly as contents of the living cells. The intense 

 orange-yellow color of the caps and stipe of the Agaricus (Pholiota) 

 spectabilis, according to Zopf, as also the pale yellow of the gills and 

 the flesh of cap and stipe together with the ochre-yellow color of 

 the masses of spores is due to the presence of a resin acid which is 

 present as a hyphal cell content. Pigments of various kinds classified 

 by Zopf are also found. Besides the important substances mentioned 

 above, chemists have found coniferin, muscarin, trimethylamin (spores of 

 Tilletia caries), ergotin, cholin, phallin, cholesterin. Several of these 

 will be discussed in connection with the poisonous or non-poisonous 

 character of certain of the fleshy fungi. 



Enzymes {Jev^vjjios, leavened, from €u, in and ^vp-v, leaven, a term 

 first suggested by Kiihne for an unorganized ferment). — The study of 

 the ferments, or enzymes, of the fungi and higher plants has thrown a 

 flood of light upon their metabolic activity, for enzyme action is the 

 strategic center of vital activity. Pasteur emphasized the role of micro- 

 organisms as ferment producers, and that led to the classification of 

 ferments into organized and unorganized. Since Buchner discovered 

 zymase, ferments have been divided into endocellular and extracellular. 

 Endocellular enzymes as those which cannot diffuse out of the cell, 

 such as zymase, while extracellular enzymes are those which are capable 

 of diffusion out of the cell, such as invertase. Hepburn defines an 

 enzyme as a soluble organic compound of biologic origin functioning 



