240 



RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



the long basidia alone are discharging their spores, and (2) a 

 lower zone, 63, in which the short basidia alone are shedding spores. 

 The two zones together are about 0-12 mm. wide. 



The means employed for observing the order of spore-discharge 

 just described was as follows. An ordinary microscope was fitted 



B 



Li 



% 



Yf 



ck 



C 0, 



y ■ "* w^ 



Fig. 103. — Apparatus used for observing spore-discharge from 

 long and short basidia of Coprinus sterquilinus. A, a com- 

 pressor cell, set vertically upright on the stage of a microscope 

 tilted to an angle of 90°. The chamber contains a piece of 

 pileus with the gills, gr, looking downwards as under natural 

 conditions. Of the gills nos. 1 and 2 have been cut short, 

 while no. 3 is complete to its lower edge where it is discharging 

 spores and undergoing autodigestion from below upwards. 

 The arrows indicate the trajectories of some of the falling 

 spores, and the central circle the field of view seen through 

 the low-power objective of the microscope. B, a vertical 

 transverse section through the middle of A : ch, the chamber 

 of the compressor cell bounded in front by the cover-glass c 

 and behind by the glass base b, both held in brass frames ; 

 g, a piece of the pileus held by pressure between h and c, having 

 all the gills cut short except the central one which was dis- 

 charging spores at its free edge ; the tiny arrow indicates the 

 trajectory of a single spore shot out irora the zone of spore- 

 discharge ; 0, the end of the low-power objective of the micro- 

 scope. The horizontal arrow indicates the direction of vision. 

 Natural size. 



with a low-power objective. Its body was then turned about the 

 inclination-joint at the top of the pillar through a right angle, with 

 the result that the tube came to have its axis set in a horizontal 

 direction and the stage to lie in a vertical plane (Fig. 103, B, o). 

 Half a gill which was actively discharging spores was then removed 

 from a fruit-body growing in the laboratory and suspended by its 

 upper edge in a compressor cell clamped to the stage of the micro- 

 scope (Fig. 103, A and B). Thus the piece of gill had an orienta- 

 tion in space similar to that which it had when forming part of the 

 fruit-body from which it was taken ; and, at the same time, it could 



