248 



RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



FIG. 84. Panaeolus 

 campanulatus. A 

 vertical section of 

 a fruit-body found 

 growing wild on 

 horse dung in a 

 field at King's 

 Heath, England. 

 The mottling of the 

 gills is well exhibi- 

 ted. Natural size. 



The gills are adnate to the stipe, rather 

 broad in the middle, and, when the pileus 

 becomes very expanded, have a tendency to 

 break away from the stipe. This breaking 

 away, however, does not occur in typical 

 campanulate pilei. The sides of the gills are 

 mottled grey and black in a very conspicuous 

 manner. The edges of the gills are white. This 

 is due to the presence of what we may call 

 cheilocystidia, i.e. hair-like structures which form 

 a fringe along the gill-edge. These cheilo- 

 cystidia excrete mucilage at their tips, often in 

 considerable quantity. The mucilage belonging 

 to adjacent hairs often becomes confluent, and 

 thus forms balls of mucilage of considerable size, 

 the larger of which with the microscope may be 

 seen clinging to as many as twenty different 

 hairs. These balls of mucilage, in fruit-bodies 

 growing on dung in fields, often occur at close 

 intervals all along each gill-edge, and are not 

 infrequently sufficiently large to be observed 

 with the naked eye. A more detailed descrip- 

 tion of the cheilocystidia and their excretory 

 products will be reserved until we approach the 

 end of the Chapter. 



The characters which belong to the Aequi- 

 hymeniiferous Type of fruit-body organisation 

 are well developed in Panaeolus campanulatus. 

 The gills, as is shown in Fig. 85, although 

 rather thin, are wedge-shaped in cross-section. 

 They are also positively geotropic and have 

 their sharp edges directed toward the ground. 

 Consequently, the hymeniurn everywhere looks 

 more or less downwards. Every small area of 

 the hymenium (every square mm.) produces 

 and liberates spores during the whole period 

 of spore-discharge. This is indicated in our 



