40 CULTURE METHODS AND TECHNIQUE 



antiseptic precautions with all material used ; (2) to take fragments 

 from a developing (growing) hymenophore and not from one mature 

 or decaying ; and (3) to employ a suitable nutrient medium. Under 

 such conditions growth is practically invariable (Figs. 9, 10), unless 

 bacteria have previously gained access to the mushroom or the 

 culture accidentally becomes contaminated. 



This method, or what was practically the same, has doubtless 

 been occasionally resorted to much earlier for obtaining cultures of 

 a few fleshy fungi, though practically no attention has been 

 bestowed upon the method. The method is, however, capable of 

 being used, and has frequently been used, in securing cultures from 

 sclerotial stages, and the writer has often employed it in obtaining 

 cultures of such stages of certain Sclerotinias. No attempt, how- 

 ever, had previously been made to determine its general applica- 

 bility. During the past few years this method has been employed 

 with a great variety of fungi, — Discomycetes, certain Pyrenomy- 

 cetes, and a considerable number of Basidiomycetes, among which 

 were forms widely different as to relationship, texture, and habitat. 

 A record was kept of the trials made with sixty-nine species of 

 Basidiomycetes, and of these, forty grew promptly on the media 

 first employed. The method is especially serviceable in securing 

 cultures of forest-tree fungi and other fleshy or woody forms the 

 spores of which may germinate only with great difficulty. 



