LEPIOTA PROCERA 



25 



nately, the opportunity which came to me for examining the fruit- 

 body was too Umited to allow me to come to a decision on this 

 point. However, I clearly perceived that the basidia are mono- 

 morphic (Fig. 17, B and C), and not tetramorphic as in L. cepaestipes 

 {cf. Fig. 9, p. 16), 

 and that consider- 

 able numbers of 

 basidia with full- 

 grown spores stand 

 close together on 

 the same small area 

 of the hymenium 

 (Fig. 16). It also 

 became evident 

 (Fig. 17, A) that, 

 unlike what one 

 finds in L. cepae- 

 stipes {cf. Figs. 7, C, 

 and 10, pp. 14 and 

 17), one generation 

 of basidia waits be- 

 fore developing its 

 spores until the 

 spores of the pre- 

 vious generation 

 have been shot 

 away. Moreover, 

 it was found that 

 the paraphyses are 

 not conspicuous 

 structures forming a hymenial pavement, like those of L. cepaestipes, 

 but that they are relatively small and inconspicuous, like those of 

 Panaeolus campanulatus and Psalliota campestris (Fig. 17, C, e). 



If the spores of Lepiota procera became pigmented when ripenmg, 

 like those of the species belonging to the Panaeolus Sub-type, the 

 gills here and there doubtless would be more or less mottled, thus 

 indicating an underlying organisation of the hymenium resembling 



Fig. 15. — Lepiota procera. Two fully expanded fruit- 

 bodies growing amid grass near trees. Photographed 

 by J. E. Titley at Four Oaks, Warwickshire, 

 England. The fruit-body in the fore-ground was 

 10 inches high. 



