Fischer . — The Biology of A r miliaria macida , Schrader . 523 
spore to the first visible signs of fruiting sixty days elapsed, and in sixty- 
eight days the life-cycle had been accomplished. 
In another flask, on December 15, on bread moistened with sterilized 
water only, spores were deposited with a needle. The first incipient carpo- 
phores showed themselves on January 29. Six days later there was a fully 
developed fruit body. So that in this case the generation occupied only 
fifty-eight days. 
In other cultures fruit bodies also appeared, but only one more will be 
specially mentioned here. 
Cubes of beech wood were sterilized in the dry oven at a temperature 
of 165° C. They were inoculated on December 21 with a piece of mycelium 
taken from a culture in a Petri-dish on a jelly of meat and malt extract 
with agar. In two days a growth of flocculent white mycelium appeared 
around the inoculated section. This spread rapidly and covered the surfaces 
of all the blocks and bound them firmly together. After some time the 
mycelium in places assumed the orange hue already referred to in connexion 
with the Petri-dish cultures, and finally, after about five months, became 
blood-red in patches. Four carpophores arose in this flask, the first 
appearing on March 10. This gives 79 days from the inoculation, 
and 109 days from spore to spore. In this case the fruit bodies stood 
singly and not In clusters as is usual. 
In order to ascertain the effect of desiccation on the mycelium, three 
pieces from the culture in which fructifications appeared on January 29 were 
taken out on the 27th (i. e. before any signs of fruiting had shown them- 
selves) and were placed in an empty sterilized flask. Twelve days later 
several Incipient fruit bodies were to be seen on each fragment. They were 
unable, however, to grow further and mature, apparently owing to insufficient 
nutriment. This seems to indicate that when the mycelium as a whole has 
reached the fruiting-stage it acquires a stimulus to form fruit bodies, which 
asserts itself under comparatively adverse conditions. 
So as to give them more food the three pieces were eventually trans- 
ferred on to a jelly of meat and malt extract. In a few days they all three 
started vigorous vegetative growth, and the jelly was soon completely 
liquefied. Though the whole surface became covered with mycelium, the 
incipient sporophores did not develop, but, on the contrary, gradually dis- 
appeared, and no signs of new ones presented themselves during the four 
months for which the culture was kept on. This, coupled with the fact that 
no fructification ever came up on any of the cultures on jelly, seems to show 
that such a substratum cannot afford the conditions necessary for the pro- 
duction of fruit bodies. No experiment, however, was carried out with 
more concentrated solutions than those described in the formulae. 
The earliest traces of the carpophores are recognizable as diminutive 
conical protuberances above the surface of the felted mycelium (Fig. 17). 
