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RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



pileus of the less vigorous fruit-body may be dragged away from 

 its base, and carried up on to the top of the pileus of the more 

 vigorous fruit-body, there to continue its growth in a more or 

 less inverted position and in a parasitic manner. Thus probably 

 came into existence the small partially inverted pileus of Tricho- 

 loma nudum which is seen attached to a normal pileus in Fig. 27. 1 



A similar explanation may 

 perhaps account for the 

 strange abnormality shown 

 in Fig. 28. Here a fruit- 

 body of Clitocybe nebularis 

 has attached to its apex 

 two smaller fruit-bodies, 

 one normal-looking with a 

 centric stipe and a down- 

 ward-looking pileus, and 

 the other with a very short 

 lateral stipe and an in- 

 verted pileus. It may be 

 that two fruit-body rudi- 

 ments were pushed up into 

 the air upon the pileus of 

 the large fruit-body and 

 that they fused with the 

 pileus upon which they 

 were seated and continued 

 their development in a 



parasitic manner, thus giving us what we see in Fig. 28. On 

 the other hand, it is possible that we here have a case of con- 

 genital proliferation : the pileus of the large fruit-body may 

 have grown upwards at one spot, and the abnormal tissue thus 

 developed may have become differentiated into the two smaller 

 fruit-bodies which the large one now sustains. 2 



The Dwarf Fruit-bodies of Coprinus lagopus. The size of the 



1 Of. W. G. Worsdell, The Principles of Plant Teratology, vol. i, London, 1915, 

 p. 20. 



2 Ibid., p. 21. 



FIG. 27. Tricholoma nudum. Confluence of 

 fruit-bodies. The largest fruit-body 

 bears at its apex another fruit-body 

 which is partially inverted. Photo- 

 graphed at Scarborough, England, by 

 A. E. Peck. About f the natural size. 



