Effect of Inversion of a Small Piece from the Fruit-Body of Ganoderma lucidus (Leyss.) Karst. growing in situ on the Trunk of Casuarina equisetifolia

Abstract

BRACKET-SHAPED sporophores of Ganoderma lucidus were growing on the trunk of an old tree of Casuarina equisetifolia in the Royal Botanical Gardens, Sibpur (Calcutta) in front of the superintendent's quarters on the bank of the Ganges. From each of the two sporophores, one growing over the other (Fig. 1), a narrow sector was cut out almost in the middle and inserted (on September 6, 1939) in the inverted position, that is, with the porous surface upwards in the cavity thus produced. It was found that in the course of nine days regeneration of the hyphæ began by way of stitching from two sides (Fig. 1). A number of interwoven hyphæ developed between the old sporophore and the new piece. The hymenial surface of the specimens was perfectly white in September; copious spore-discharge continued for about two months, the adjoining areas of the trunk becoming dusted over with Ganoderma spores. Gradually, the lower surface turned pinkish and finally brownish with stoppage of spore-discharge by the following December. In the course of these three months the porous area on the upper face of the cut-out sector became gradually covered with the typical laccate crust-growth of the upper surface (Fig. 2, above) and its lower surface was at the same time flanked over with hymenial growth from two sides (Fig. 2, below). A section of the present upper face of the sector showed the typical thick-walled palisade hyphæ in close cluster with a number of brown shot-out spores here and there under the new crust (Fig. 3).