296 DIVISION II, — COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF FUNGI. 



is ruptured and torn by these processes in different ways according to the species 

 and thrown off by the more or less sharply defined and more persistent tissue of 

 the definitive surface of the pilous. These arc all facts which remind us of similar 

 ones in the volva of Amanita. Here too no clear distinction can be drawn between 

 hairs and hyphae. This is the case with the Fungus-bodies generally ; when we 

 speak of hairs in the Fungi we always mean parts of hyphae of special form 

 and arrangement. The peripheral elements in the species of Amanita may if necessary 

 be also termed hairs. But the difference already pointed out in the first stages of 

 the formation appears to me decisive in favour of the account given above. In 

 Coprinus the apex of the pilcus is first formed, and then the hairs sprout out from it. 

 Brefeld's figures of C. lagopus show this clearly, and it strikes the eye especially, 

 when, as in C. stercorarius, the hairs of the surface of the pileus have an entirely 

 different form from those of the stipe and marginal veil 1 . In Amanita, on the 

 contrary, the parts in question separate from one another in the previously formed 

 uniform compact primordial hyphal tissue by differentiation, that is, by difference 

 in the further development. The distinction remains unaltered, though the effect, 

 the practical use if we may say so, is the same in both cases, namely, the formation of 

 a protecting envelope for the young growing pileus. Still less is it affected by Brefeld's 

 query, why the pileus of C. lagopus should indulge in the luxury of forming hairs 

 from which it gains nothing but the trouble of getting rid of them again. For the 

 situation remains the same in this respect if instead of hairs we say volva, or if it 

 really were a volva ; and hairs or oftentimes a close felt of hair are found as a protecting 

 covering in an infinite number of cases, not only on the pilei of Fungi, but on all possible 

 parts of plants during a certain portion of the young state, and are thrown off before 

 the parts are unfolded. 



2. In the case of Amanita Brefeld's and my own previous statements complete 

 one another without any important differences of opinion. Our direct observations 

 on the first separation of pileus and volva would not in themselves be sufficient to 

 establish with entire certainty the marked distinction which has been pointed out 

 above between this genus and the forms with a marginal veil ; it would still be 

 possible that the volva is formed in the same way as the envelope in the Coprini 

 or in Agaricus melleus, and that the contrary conclusion arose from the unsuitableness 

 or minute examination of the scanty material at the disposal of the observer, which 

 must be laboriously collected in our forests. But that the processes are really different 

 may certainly be gathered from the development of the lamellae, for which it is much 

 less difficult to obtain suitable materials and preparations. Ocular inspection also 

 in conjunction with the facts thus established scarcely leaves a doubt as to the 

 correctness of the view here proposed with respect to the first separation of the volva. 



3. The final result of the development as exhibited in the expanded pileus is always 

 the same in the truly gymnocarpous forms whether they have a marginal veil or a 

 volva. This circumstance makes it probable that intermediate forms are to be found 

 in the long series of the Agaricineae connecting the three types here distinguished. 

 The conjecture finds support in a comparison of the forms described above ; Agaricus 

 melleus with its marginal veil comes nearer to the gymnocarpous forms than the 

 closely enveloped Coprini, which rather approach the Amanitcac in the character 

 of the envelope, though the difference before insisted on still remains. More extended 

 and searching investigations may be expected to add to the number of intermediate 

 forms. According to former statements of mine a further phenomenon of an inter- 

 mediate character occurs in some species with the marginal veil, in which the com- 

 pound sporophore is at first a small undifferentiated tuber as in Amanita, and then 

 a narrow space containing air, a horizontal annular slit, appears in the interior of the 



1 Brefeld, Schimmelpilze, III, t. II, Figs. j-.j. ,\, 



