. Ants; their structure, development and behavior. mmarizes the results of thisportion of his studies in the following words: All the fungus-gardens of the Atta species Ihave investigated, are pervaded with the samekind of mycelium, which produces the kohlrabiclusters as long as the ants are cultivating thegardens. Under the influence of the ants neitherfree aerial hyphae nor any form of fruit areever developed. The mycelium proliferatesthrough the garden to the complete exclusion ofany alien fungus, and the fungus garden of anest represents in its entirety a pure culture of a single
. Ants; their structure, development and behavior. mmarizes the results of thisportion of his studies in the following words: All the fungus-gardens of the Atta species Ihave investigated, are pervaded with the samekind of mycelium, which produces the kohlrabiclusters as long as the ants are cultivating thegardens. Under the influence of the ants neitherfree aerial hyphae nor any form of fruit areever developed. The mycelium proliferatesthrough the garden to the complete exclusion ofany alien fungus, and the fungus garden of anest represents in its entirety a pure culture of a single fungus has two different forms of conidia which arise in thegarden when it is removed from the influence of the ants. Thehyphae have a very pronounced tendency to produce swellings ordiverticula. which show several more or less peculiar and clearly differ-entiated variations. One of these, which has presumably reached itspresent form through the influence of cultivation and selection on thepart of the ants, is represented by the kohlrabi , .- FIG. 194. Diagramof nest of Trachymyr-mex with fivechambers. The righthalf of the figure is acontinuation of thelower portion of theleft half. (Original.) THE FUNGUS-GROWING ANTS. 337 Moeller undertook to determine the systematic position of the fun-gus. He naturally supposed that the discovery of the fruiting formwould show it to he an Asco- or Basidiomycete. Although he failed toraise either of these forms from his mycelial cultures, he succeeded onfour occasions in finding an undescribed Agaricine mushroom withwine-red stem and pileus growing in extinct or abandoned From the basidiospores of this plant, which he called Rhozitcsi/onyylof>lwra, he succeeded in raising a mycelium resembling in allrespects that of the ant gardens. Three of the species of Acroin\ not hesitate to eat portions of this mycelium and of the pileus and
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectants, bookyear1910
