VARIOUS OBSERVATIONS 87 



this error. In the year 1911, when I was studying the specific 

 differences of a number of coprophilous Coprini, I was uncertain 

 which fruit-bodies were considered as being included in Coprinus 

 radiatus. When at Kew, I therefore asked Massee his opinion on 

 the matter. He said that C. radiatus was a very minute species 

 very common on horse dung in pastures, and he kindly took me on 

 a little excursion into the field adjoining the Royal Herbarium in 

 order to find some specimens. Soon, on turning up a mass of 

 horse-dung balls which was dry on the top and had been lying 

 in the field for some time, he found among the crevices between the 

 balls a number of very small fruit-bodies which were only a few 

 millimetres high and which evidently belonged to three separate 

 species of Coprinus ; and he then indicated the fruit-bodies which 

 he regarded as belonging to Coprinus radiatus. These were of the 

 most delicate construction, so delicate indeed that on exposure to 

 the open air they actually did " wither with a breath " in accord- 

 ance with the description of them in Massee's Fungus Flora. I 

 made a careful note of the appearance of these small fruit-bodies. 

 Their stipes were extremely thin, much less than 1 mm. thick, and 

 from about 2 to 10 mm. high, and their pilei were from about 

 2 to 5 mm. in diameter. Further, the pilei were bluish-grey, 

 flattened with a depressed disc, plicated, and here and there bearing 

 a few patent, fibrillose, easily detachable scales. These scales and 

 the general appearance of the pilei at once reminded me of the 

 relatively large fruit-bodies of Coprinus lagopus which I had so 

 often seen in my cultures and had studied at Winnipeg. I there- 

 fore collected the dung-balls, dried them, took them to Winnipeg, 

 after six months watered them, then put them in a closed crystal- 

 lising dish, and awaited the result. In the course of a few days, 

 some more of the delicate fruit-bodies came up. I then examined 

 their structure with the microscope and found it identical with that 

 of the fruit-bodies of C. lagopus. Subsequently, I took the spores of 

 a dwarf fruit-body, sowed them on sterilised horse dung, and obtained 

 large fruit-bodies of C. lagopus. Thus I convinced myself that the 

 species which Massee described in his Fungus Flora as " withering 

 with a breath," under the name of Coprinus radiatus, is nothing 

 more than an assemblage of dwarf fruit-bodies of Coprinus lagopus. 



