COPRINUS STERQUILINUS 179 



I have no doubt that Bolton based his description of C. ohlectus on 

 some fruit-bodies of C. sterquilinus observed in the pink stage.^ 



Cooke in Plate 660 of his Illustrations of British Fungi 

 shows the general size and form of some unexpanded fruit-bodies 

 of C. sterquilinus, but the scales are far too dark in colour ; they 

 should have been white or whitish. An excellent coloured illustra- 

 tion of an expanded fruit-body, under the synonym C. stenocoleus, 

 is provided by Fries in Plate 140 of his I cones. 



Occurrence. — Coprinus sterquilinus is coprophilous : it grows 

 on horse dung. In England I have met with the fruit-bodies on 

 horse dung scattered over a field near Birmingham, on horse dung 

 covered with soil on a path in a wood near Stourbridge, on horse 

 dung placed on one of the flower beds in Kew Gardens, and on 

 horse-dung scrapings partly dug into the soil of a garden near 

 London. Horse dung infected with the mycelium has also been 

 sent to me from Wales. In Canada, I have seen the fungus coming 

 up on horse-dung balls partially buried in a garden on the campus 

 of the University of Manitoba. In the neighbourhood of Winni- 

 peg, Coprinus sterquilinus must be very common, for it has come 

 u}) spontaneously in my laboratory upon horse-dung balls collected 

 from the city streets, every year for the last twelve years and more 

 than twenty times altogether. Massee states that the fungus is 

 found in Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and 

 Belgium. Possibly its distribution coincides with that of the horse.^ 



Cultures. — I have obtained Coprinus sterquilinus on several 

 occasions by taking advantage of the fact that the spores can 

 pass through the alimentary canal of horses without injury. The 

 winter conditions of Manitoba are severe : the ground is usually 

 covered with snow from the middle of November to the end of 

 March, and, during this time, the temperature ranges from 0° to 

 — 40° C. Horse-dung balls dropped in the streets upon the snow 

 in the depth of winter usually become frozen solid in a few minutes, 

 and in this condition they remain until the spring thaw sets in. 



1 Possibly Massee's C. gigasporus (Annals of Botany, vol. x, 1896, p. 157, fig. 3), 

 although not described as having an annulus, is also synonymous with C. sterquilinus. 



- G. Massee, " A Revision of the genus Coprinus," Annals oj Botany, vol. x, 1896, 

 p. 139. 



