CHAPTER V. — COMPARATIVE REVIEW. — HYMENOMYCETES. 2$J 



part which is afterwards the upper extremity of the stipe ; the part above the slit 

 becomes the pileus, that below it the stipe, and that which bounds it on the outside the 

 marginal veil. The further development is the same as that of the species with 

 marginal veils described above. So far as these statements related to Coprinus, they 

 have been shown by Brefeld's researches to be incorrect ; my own did not pay sufficient 

 regard to the earliest stages of the development. I will not even maintain that they 

 are quite correct for Agaricus campestris and A. praecox, but readily allow that the 

 facts in their case are always the same as in A. melleus and that the first extension 

 of the marginal veil over the hymenial surface which was originally exposed had 

 there also been overlooked. At all events the question should be further investigated. 

 I bring forward these earlier statements chiefly to show how we may picture to 

 ourselves the phenomena which would be intermediate between Amanita and 

 species with a marginal veil, the modes in which differentiations may be combined 

 with subsequent progressive growth of free margins bounded by gaps in the pileus 

 and lamellae. 



4. With the exception of certain special cases arising out of the circumstances 

 just described, all, or very nearly all, the veiled forms here mentioned may be arranged 

 under the chief types specified in the text. The origin also of peculiarities like the 

 annulus mobilis in the comparatively few cases in which it occurs, as in Agaricus 

 (Lepiota) procerus, can scarcely be different from that in Coprinus ephemeroides. 



Information as to the presence or absence of the volva in the several species or 

 groups will be found in descriptive works. It appears to be found only in the 

 groups Amanita and Volvaria and the peculiar genus Montagnites, a form of the 

 Agaricineae which is distinguished by the absence in the mature state of a proper 

 pileus and which requires investigation. The lamellae in the latter case are radially 

 disposed round the upper and somewhat broader end of the cylindrical stipe which 

 projects from out of a volva 1 . 



Examples of marginal veils are supplied by the Coprini which have been described 

 above, by the groups Lepiota, Armillaria, Pholiota, Hypholoma, Psalliota, &c. in the 

 Agaricineae, and by Boletus luteus, B. elegans and their nearest allies. All species not 

 belonging to the Agaricineae, the non-fleshy species among the Agaricineae and the 

 fleshy ones of the divisions Mycena, Clitocybe, Omphalia, Pleurotus, Paxillus, Gom- 

 phidius, Lactarius, Russula, Cantharellus, Nyctalis, are, as far as can be ascertained, 

 truly gymnocarpous. Other groups or genera which are at present considered distinct 

 contain gymnocarpous species and species with a marginal veil. The group of 

 Boletus luteus is an instance of the kind. Among the Coprini, which otherwise agree 

 so closely together, Coprinus ephemerus is distinguished, according to Brefeld, from the 

 species described above by the entire absence both of a veil and of the dense covering 

 of hairs ; in place of the latter only short, scattered, conico-cylindrical hairs are found 

 on the surface of the pileus and stipe. 



Some species of the section Collybia for instance, Agaricus dryophilus, A. tuberosus, 

 and A. cirrhatus are gymnocarpous, while others, according to Hoffmann, as A. velutipes 

 and A. fusipes, have marginal veils. Similar differences are found among the Cortinarii, 

 Hygrophori, and others. We are still without comprehensive and certain knowledge 

 of all these circumstances, nor have the various formations described from time to time 

 as vela ever been critically examined ; a more thorough investigation of these points is 

 therefore to be urged now as it was twenty years ago. 



Section LXXXVII. The structure of the mature compound sporophores, 



excluding from consideration the hymenial layer which will be specially noticed here- 

 after, in perhaps all non-fleshy and many fleshy forms is always ' hyphal' ('fadiger'), and 

 the general rules specified above in section XIII are applicable to it. Exceptions and 



1 Corda, Icon. VI, t. XX ; Explor. sc. d'Algerie, t. 21. 



