50 Buller . — The Enzy 7 nes of Polyporus squamosus, Huds. 
Botanical Gardens, Birmingham, and their juice extracted. The extract, 
except where stated otherwise, was made from living and sound fruit-bodies 
directly before each experiment. One hundred grams of the Fungus were cut 
up into thin slices and then pounded in a mortar with ico c.c. water for about 
forty minutes. The mixture was filtered through a cloth, this being folded 
over the residue and twisted, so as to extract as much juice as possible. 
The amount of the extract from a given weight of a fruit-body was fairly 
constant. One example will suffice. From ioogm. Fungus plus ioo c.c. 
water, 136 c.c. of liquid were extracted. The extract was light in colour 
and neutral in reaction. 
(1) Amylase (diastase). In testing for this enzyme 1 c.c. of the extract 
.was added to about 20 c.c. of a 5 per cent, solution of Lintner’s soluble 
starch in a test-tube a. As a control experiment a similar mixture was 
made in a test-tube b , the extract, however, being first boiled. The tubes 
were kept at a temperature of 28° C. 
After sixteen hours 5 c.c. of the solution in a was added to 5 c.c. of 
Fehling’s solution and boiled for ten minutes. The Fehling’s solution was 
thereby almost completely reduced, the blue colour practically disappearing' 
and a large precipitate of cuprous oxide being thrown down. The control 
was tested in a similar manner when it was found that the colour of the 
Fehling’s solution remained unchanged. Only the minutest trace of 
cuprous oxide was thrown down, doubtless due to some substance in the 
original extract, for this was found to have a very slight reducing action 
immediately after it was made. The complete hydrolysis of the starch 
in the test-tube a was confirmed by the gradual disappearance of the blue 
reaction on testing with iodine. 
Bourquelot and H^rissey (loc. cit.) demonstrated the presence of diastase 
in Polyporus sulphur eus so that it was almost to be expected that Polyporus 
squamosus would contain a similar enzyme. 
(2) Laccase. To determine the presence of laccase, 5 c.c. of the extract 
was added to 10 c.c. of a 5 per cent, hydroquinone solution in a 50 c.c. flask a 
stoppered with cotton wool. A similar mixture was made as a control 
in a flask b, the extract, however, being first boiled. The flasks were 
kept at the temperature of the laboratory. 
After three hours the liquid in flask a had assumed a distinct rose-tint 
and after eighteen hours was deep brownish red. During the next few days 
the colour gradually deepened. An iridescent pellicle consisting of green 
crystalline scales of quin-hydrone, with a metallic lustre, appeared on the 
surface of the fluid, and a dark red precipitate of the same substance was 
thrown down. There was a distinct smell of quinone. In the control the 
mixture was practically colourless after eighteen hours. Although within 
the next fourteen days the colour of the fluid darkened, no iridescent 
pellicle, dark red precipitate or smell of quinone was developed. 
