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.

"I have seen a stipe opened and lacerated irregularly, the whole of
the flesh of which remained phosphorescent during three consecutive
evenings, but the brightness diminished in intensity from the exterior
to the interior, so that on the third day it did not issue from the
inner part of the stipe. The phosphorescence of the gills is in no way
modified at first by immersing the fungus in water; when they have
been immersed they are as bright as in the air, but the fungi which I
left immersed until the next evening lost all their phosphorescence,
and communicated to the water an already sensible yellow tint; alcohol
put upon the phosphorescent gills did not at once completely
obliterate the light, but visibly enfeebled it. As to the spores,
which are white, I have found many times very dense coats of them
thrown down on porcelain plates, b