THE INAEQUI-HYMENIIFERAE 127 



Among these were : the dimorphism of the basidia and the associated 

 crowding of the basidia on the hymenium, the fate of the cystidia, 

 the fact that the spores ripen in succession on each gill from below 

 upwards, and the significance of the phenomenon of deliquescence. ^ 

 Massee ^ in 1896 gave a revision of the genus Coprinus in which he 

 enumerated 169 species and discussed their general morphology, 

 their distribution, their habitat, and their classification. However, 

 he was unable to add anything to our knowledge of the mechanism 

 of the fruit-bodies as organs for the production and liberation of the 

 spores. He even overlooked the fact that the spores are developed 

 and discharged from below upwards on the gills, and he entirely 

 misinterpreted the meaning of the drops produced by the deli- 

 quescence of the gills and pileus-flesh. Massee says : " The species 

 of Coprinus differ from the remainder of the Agaricineae in one im- 

 portant biological feature, — the deliquescence of the gills at maturity 

 into a liquid which drips to the ground, carrying the mature spores 

 along with it. This primitive and relatively imperfect mode of 

 spore-dissemination, as compared with the minute, dry, wind-borne 

 spores of the remainder of the Agaricineae, combined with other 

 evidence to be noted later on, indicates that in the genus Coprinus 

 we have, in reality, the remnant of a primitive group of Fungi from 

 which have descended the entire modern group of Agaricineae 

 having wind-borne spores." ^ I showed, in Volume I of these 

 Researches, that the spores of the Coprini are wind-borne and that, 

 consequently, Massee was in error in supposing they are not. When 

 the wind-borne character of the spores is admitted, Massee's chief 

 argument for regarding the genus Coprinus as being the remnant 

 of a group from which all the other Agaricineae have been evolved 

 is destroyed. In the first Volume of these Researches I gave reasons 



1 Brefeld's errors of observation were few. Those which I have noticed are : 

 the details of the discharge of the spores from the sterigmata {cf. these Researches, 

 vol. i, pp., 134-135 ; vol. ii, p. 4) ; the representation of all the basidia in a cross- 

 section of the hymenium as being long and much protuberant instead of as being 

 long and short [Untersuchungen, he. cit., PI. IV, Figs. 11 and 12), and the statement 

 that the basidia all begin to develop spores, etc., at one and tlie same time throughout 

 the pileus {Untersuchungen, loc. cit., p. 56). 



^ G. Massee, "A Revision of the Genus Coprinus," Annals of Botany, vol. x, 

 1896, pp. 123-184 and two Plates. 



3 Ibid., pp. 123-130. 



