Fungi: Their Nature and UsesCooke, M. C. (Mordecai Cubitt)
Science
Fungi: Their Nature and Uses
Cooke, M. C. (Mordecai Cubitt)
Fungi
"It is an important fact," writes Tulasne, "which I can confirm, and
which it is important to insist upon, that the phosphorescence is not
exclusively confined to the hymenial surface. Numerous observations
made by me prove that the whole of the substance of the fungus
participates very frequently, if not always, in the faculty of shining
in the dark. Among the first Agarics which I examined, I found many,
the stipe of which shed here and there a light as brilliant as the
hymenium, and led me to think that it was due to the spores which had
fallen on the surface of the stipe. Therefore, being in the dark, I
scraped with my scalpel the luminous parts of the stipe, but it did
not sensibly diminish their brightness; then I split the stipe,
bruised it, divided it into small fragments, and I found that the
whole of this mass, even in its deepest parts, enjoyed, in a similar
degree to its superficies, the property of light. I found, besides, a
phosphorescence quite as brilliant in all the cap, for, having split
it vertically in the form of plates, I found that the trama, when
bruised, threw out a light equal to that of their fructiferous
surfaces, and there is really only the superior surface of the pileus,
or its cuticle, which I have never seen luminous.
"As I have said, the Agaric of the olive-tree, which is itself
very yellow, reflects a strong brilliant light, and remains
endowed with this remarkable faculty whilst it grows, or, at
least, while it appears to preserve an active life, and remains fresh.
The phosphorescence is at first, and more ordinarily, recognizable
at the surface of the hymenium. I have seen a great number of young
fungi which were very phosphorescent in the gills, but not in any
other part. In another case, and amongst more aged fungi, the
hymenium of which had ceased to give light, the stipe, on the
contrary, threw out a brilliant glare. Habitually, the phosphorescence
is distributed in an unequal manner upon the stipe, and the same
upon the gills. Although the stipe is luminous at its surface, it is
not always necessarily so in its interior substance, if one bruises
it, but this substance frequently becomes phosphorescent after
contact with the air. Thus, I had irregularly split and slit a large
stipe in its length, and I found the whole flesh obscure, whilst
on the exterior were some luminous places. I roughly joined the
lacerated parts, and the following evening, on observing them
anew, I found them all flashing a bright light. At another time, I
had with a scalpel split vertically many fungi in order to hasten
their dessication; the evening of the same day, the surface of all
these cuts was phosphorescent, but in many of these pieces of fungi
the luminosity was limited to the cut surface which remained
exposed to the air; the flesh beneath was unchanged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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