STUDIES AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF MUSH- 

 ROOMS, II. 



Three Edible Species of Copriiius. 



I — The Shaggy-Mane {Copri7ius comatus). 



The "shaggy-mane," or ''horsetail mushroom" (Coprinus 

 comatus), is one of the largest plants of this genus. It is usually 

 considered by many to surpass all the other species of the genus 

 in those qualities most esteemed by the fungus eater. The 

 frontispiece is from a photograph of a group of these plants 

 growing in a lawn on the Cornell University Campus. All stages 

 of the "horsetail" are here represented, from the tiny ones 

 which are thrusting their heads through the turf to the old ones 

 which present an unsightly aspect as they are melting down 

 into inky blackness, an example of the swiftness with which it 

 passes its ephemeral existence. A day, or at most two or three 

 days is vouchsafed to it during which it is to lift itself up into 

 the free air, where it may expand and mature its spores. Then 

 it vanishes. But it has accomplished the final purpose for which 

 it exists as an organism. Its " seed," the spores are free to 

 be carried by the wind or other agencies of dissemination to 

 distant places, and thus propagate the species. While the 

 natural mode of the wide dissemination of the plant is probably 

 b}^ the distribution of the spores, dissemination may take place 

 through the agency of man or other animals when the soil is 

 disturbed. 



Some of the ' ' spawn ' ' may be transplanted in the sod for 

 covering new lawns, or in the fertilizer for old ones. Here food 

 lying hidden in the soil is awaiting forage at the pleasure of the 

 searching threads of the mycelium or "spawn," which now 

 spreads its meshes as it extends through the earth. Here it 

 grows for months or sometimes for years may be, laying by sup- 

 plies in the shape of an increased amount of "spawn." We 

 tread upon the soft carpet of green or recline on the sod unmind"- 



