CHAPTER VIII 



COPRINUS STERQUILINUS 



Introduction — Synonyms — Occurrence — Cultures — Description of the Maturing 

 Fruit-body — -The Structure and Development of the Hymenium — The Spores 

 — The Mode of Fall and the Adhesiveness of the Spores considered in Relation 

 with Herbivorous Animals — The Discharge of the Spores and the Phenomenon 

 of Autodigestion — Conclusion and Discussion of the Probable Steps in the 

 Evolution of the Inaequi-hymeniiferae 



Introduction. — Coprinus sterquilinus, as pointed out at the 

 beginning of the last Chapter, is a representative of the Comatus 

 Sub-type and is closely related to Coprinus comatus. Its fruit- 

 bodies are large and handsome. Moreover, in contrast with those 

 of Coprinus comatus, they can be raised with great ease in pure 

 cultures. I have grown the fungus in my laboratory for several 

 successive years, and have thus been enabled to observe and in- 

 vestigate the structure and development of large numbers of fruit- 

 bodies, with the result that I have succeeded in making out the 

 mechanism for the production and liberation of spores in detail. 

 I now propose to describe this mechanism as fully as possible. 

 Owing to the similarity in organisation of Coprinus comatus and 

 C. sterquilinus, it will be necessary to repeat with but little altera- 

 tion for the latter species a number of statements which have been 

 made for the former. However, the account of Coprinus comatus 

 was broken, unfortunately, into a main portion in Chapter XIX 

 of Volume I and a supplemental portion in the preceding Chapter 

 of this volume. The account of Coprinus sterquilinus, on the other 

 hand, will have the advantage of continuity and will be complete 

 from the first. 



In 1915, in a paper in the Festschrift published in honour of 

 Wilhelm Pfeffer, in whose laboratory I once had the privilege of 



\OL. III. 177 N 



