354 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



study of such a set of fruit-bodies as that shown in Fig. 176 that 

 the pileus of Mycena galericulata remains in a very rudimentary 

 condition whilst travelUng through the soil and only begins to 

 expand when it has come to the soil's surface. 



At its point of attachment to the woody substratum, a 

 pseudorhiza of Mycena galericulata consists of a small, firm, yellowish 

 swelling, and the shaft of the pseudorhiza, as it passes upwards 

 through the soil, gradually increases in diameter, and thus attains 

 its maximum diameter just beneath the surface of the ground. 

 The outer surface of a pseudorhiza is white and covered with fine 

 hyphae which attach themselves to leaf-debris, etc. ; and the interior 

 of a pseudorhiza is hollow like that of the aerial stipe-shaft with 

 which it is continuous (Fig. 176, c). 



A pseudorhiza, hke an aerial stipe-shaft, grows upwards because 

 it is negatively geotropic. Sometimes a pseudorhiza, instead of 

 being straight, is crooked. When this is so, the crookedness has 

 been brought about by the pseudorhiza, when pushing upwards, 

 having encountered mechanical obstacles which could not be pene- 

 trated and which therefore were avoided by obhque growth hke 

 that which occurs with true roots under similar conditions. 



Mycena galericulata, so far as I am aware, hves only as a sapro- 

 phyte on dead wood, and I have never seen it in any situation 

 which would suggest that it is a parasite. The fruit-bodies illus- 

 trated in Fig. 176 were rather large and more expanded than usual ; 

 but, after they had been gathered a day or two, the gills turned 

 pinkish in the usual way. 



The fruit-bodies of Mycena galericulata shown in Fig. 176 had 

 bisporous basidia, which is in accord with the observations of 

 Patouillard,^ Ricken,^ and Lange.^ Ricken * states that the 

 bisporous basidia of M. galericulata serve to distinguish this species 

 from the very similar but four-spored M. tintinnahulum. However, 

 that there is a four-spored form of M. galericulata as well as a two- 



^ N. Patouillard, Tabulae analyticae fungorum , Fasc. Ill, 1884, No. 214, p. 96. 

 2 A. Ricken, Die Bldtterpihe, Leipzig, Bd. I, 1915, p. 439. 



^ J. E. Lange, " Studies in the x\garics of Denmark," Dansh Botanisk Arkiv, 

 Copenhagen, Bd. I, No. 5, 1914, p. 33. 

 * A. Ricken, loc. cit. 



