176 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



apices, were now becoming scaly. After five further days the fruit- 

 bodies had reached the stage of development shown in Fig. 68. 

 From an examination of the photograph it is evident that these 

 fruit-bodies, developed in an artificial culture in the laboratory, 

 had the scaly pileus, free annulus, stature, and general appearance 

 of typical wild fruit-bodies. The gills of the fruit-bodies, at the 

 time the photograph was taken, were turning pink from below 

 upwards, and soon thereafter they began to turn black from below 

 upwards. Then each pileus expanded and shed spores in the usual 

 manner. 



The beaker culture behaved like the specimen-jar culture. It 

 first developed a single fruit-body (five days before the three fruit- 

 bodies shown in Fig. 68) and then about a fortnight later three 

 more fruit-bodies. 



To permit of the upgrowth of the young fruit-bodies, the glass 

 plates covering the cultures were removed. Unfortunately, this led 

 to the infection of the mycelium by maggots and ultimately to its 

 destruction. 



Summing up, a total of four fruit-bodies was obtained in each of 

 Miss Mounce's two cultures. It has therefore been demonstrated 

 that, under suitable conditions, Coprinus comatus can be brought to 

 the fruiting stage in the laboratory. 



