194 THE USES OF FUNGI.
in diabetes. . . . Enemata of yeast have been found useful in
cases of flatulent distension."
Lowly an organism as yeast is, it may challenge the whole of the
rest of the vegetable kingdom taken together to show anything else
a tenth so important as it is. Without yeast the world would want
wine and beer and bread. However well we might dispense with
wine and beer, there can be no question of the economical value of
leavened bread.
A curious mycelioid condition of a fungus closely allied to yeast is
found in the so-called "vinegar-plant," which, when placed in a
saccharine solution at an ordinary temperature, sets up fermentation
and produces vinegar. From the many observations which have
been made regarding it, the vinegar plant appears to be the
mycelium of a kind of mould known as Penicillium glaucum (or
crustaceum).
In certain parts of the country we come across a somewhat
similar vegetable growth under the name of the "ginger beer plant."
Those who possess the article assure us that out of sugar and water
and ginger it makes ginger-beer, which their children drink with
avidity and relish. Our friend Mr. Worthington G. Smith is often
asked in "The Gardeners' Chronicle" what fungus this is, and I
believe that in despair he has christened it "Gingerbeerum diabolicum."
Visitors to the Inventions' Exhibition who have found their way
to the locality there marked in the map as "Austria-Hungary" have
probably noticed two elegant little stalls labelled "Spongio-Lignine."
I would draw your especial attention to this product, since it is
clearly capable of being put to many important uses. Mr. Eugen
Golonga has been kind enough to lend me a quantity of articles
manufactured out of this substance by his patented process, which
he will be happy to explain and show to you. You will recognise at
once that "Spongio-Lignine" is nothing else than a careful prepara-
tion of the so-called Amadou or German tinder, which you know is
made from dried slices of the hard pileus of Polyporus fomentarius
and some allied species which grow on the trunks of trees. These
are beaten out till they become quite soft and flexible. To form
tinder, they are saturated with salt-petre and dried; sometimes gun-
powder is used instead of simple nitre, when the substance is black-
ened, as, in this example, which has been lent to me by my friend
Dr. Cooke. The ordinary use of Amadou on the Continent—the
name is from the French verb amadouer, to coax, as if it coaxed the