CULTURES OF COPRINUS COMATUS 171 



and the development of new sporophores. The negative results 

 with ordinary dung cultures obtained by myself, Dr. Thaxter, and 

 Miss Mounce do not support Brefeld's statement that the fruit- 

 bodies of Coprinus comatus can be easily raised in dung cultures. 

 It is therefore all the more to be regretted that this distinguished 

 mycologist should have dismissed his successful experiments with 

 the two largest Coprini in so few words. 



At Winnipeg, large numbers of Coprinus comatus fruit-bodies 

 appeared upon a small lawn and a cinder path in front of a house. 

 The owner of the house, who held the erroneous belief that the fruit- 

 bodies were poisonous, desired to prevent their coming up ; so he 

 raked over the cinder path and dug up part of the lawn. Neverthe- 

 less, after a while, both on the path and on the lawn, large numbers 

 of new fruit-bodies sprang into existence. The owner of the house, 

 thus finding his authority mysteriously defied, asked me to come 

 and see the fungi and advise him how he might free his premises 

 from what he evidently regarded as a plague. On visiting the 

 house, I found the fruit-bodies in dense clusters scattered over the 

 lawn, some of them with their shaggy barrel-shaped pilei 4 or 5 inches 

 high and in that interesting stage when they are just beginning to 

 expand and shed their spores. As we looked at the fruit-bodies, 

 the owner said to me : " What would you do with them ? " " Eat 

 them," was my prompt reply ; but he looked at me half incredu- 

 lously and appeared to be wondering how any one could swallow 

 so dangerous a thing as a Toadstool and ' get away with it.' 



To find out upon what the Coprinus comatus had been feeding, 

 with the help of a spade I dug a hole in the lawn to a depth of 3 feet. 

 It soon became evident that the mycelium had been growing upon 

 laths of wood, horse dung, and other rubbish which had been buried 

 beneath the lawn a few years before at the time the house was 

 built. I traced the mycelium from the fruit-bodies downwards 

 through the ground for a distance of 34 inches. Thus it was proved 

 that the mycelium of Coprinus comatus can grow on substrata buried 

 at a considerable depth beneath the soil, and then produce fruit- 

 bodies at the soil's surface. 



On another occasion, I found a cluster of Coprinus comatus 

 fruit-bodies above bare cinders on a railway track. Upon removing 



