Black-spored Series 



GENUS COPRINUS 

 Ink Caps (Edible) 



The genus Copr/iiiis may be readily recognised from the 

 fact that the spore-bearing plates dissolve to an inky fluid soon 

 after the spores mature. 



An amateur mushroom hunter may feel perfectly safe in col- 

 lecting ink caps for his table, as all the species large enough to 

 tempt the collector are not only edible, but are generally conceded 

 to be of the best. 



Their general appearance is such that even the most un- 

 trained observer should not mistake them for species of other 

 groups. 



The oblong or nearly cylindrical cap, which does not expand 

 until ready to dissolve in inky drops, is too striking a character- 

 istic to permit of any one making a mistake in identifying it as 

 a specimen safe to eat. 



These plants literally grow up in a night and perish in a 

 day, as their period of growth is spent underground, and it is 

 not until all the parts of the fruiting portions of the plants are 

 fully developed that they push themselves above ground. Then 

 they push and crowd from the ground in such numbers, where 

 but a few hours before no evidence of them was seen, that each 

 one is compressed from its cylindrical form to that of a many- 

 sided prism, so that there would be no chance for the expansion 

 of those within the group if it were not that those on the outer 

 rim so rapidly expand and dissolve away. 



Specimens to be eaten should be gathered in the young 

 stage and should be cooked promptly; for though not poisonous 

 in the black stage, they are surely not attractive. 



Shelley must have had the ink caps in mind when he wrote 

 of the fungi in the garden of "The Sensitive Plant": 



Their mass rotted off them flake by flake, 

 Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, 

 Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high, 

 Infecting th« winds that wander by." 



Co-pri'-nus 

 89 



