238 



RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



about fifteen minutes. Owing to the presence of the dish, the spores 

 were discharged from the gills in still air. The peripheral smudges 

 correspond merely to places where the autodigesting edges of the 



gills rested on the 

 paper. Each gill 

 shot away spores 

 from its two oppo- 

 site spore-discharge 

 zones close to the 

 gill-edge. Hence the 

 spore-deposit from 

 each gni is shown 

 in the figure as a 

 pair o f radially 

 running, parallel, 

 even, black lines, 

 each about • 3 mm. 

 thick. The white 

 line between the 

 pair of black ones 

 corresponds to the 

 gill's extreme edge, 

 which was under- 

 going autodigestion 

 and not discharging 

 spores. The re- 

 maining white 

 spaces, which widen 

 as they proceed centrifugally and which vary from about 1 to 2 • 5 mm. 

 in width, correspond to higher parts of the gills arched over the inter- 

 lamellar spaces (c/. Fig. 101, A, p. 237), from which no spores were 

 as yet being discharged. 



The Aequi-hymeniiferae or Non-Coprinus fungi shed spores 

 simultaneously from all parts (every square mm.) of their gills and 

 not simply from very narrow zones of spore-discharge at their 

 gill-edges. Hence their spore-deposits show only two features : 

 narrow, radial, spore-less Imes corresponding to the gill-edges and 



Fig. 102. — Coprinus sterquiliniis. A spore-deposit made 

 by a large expanded pileus (c/. Fig. 97, F, p. 232) in 

 15 minutes. The pileus was removed from its stipe, 

 set on white paper, and covered with a small inverted 

 crystallising dish. The peripheral smudges are due 

 to contact of the autodigesting gill-edges with the 

 paper. Each gill shot away spores from its two 

 opposite spore-discharge zones just above its free 

 edge; and the spores, after travelhng horizontally 

 not more than 0*2 mm., fell vertically downwards. 

 Hence each gill is represented by a thin white line 

 bounded by two thin black ones. Above the broad 

 white radial bands, the hymenium had not yet begun 

 to shed spores. Natural size. 



