COPRINUS LAGOPUS 



313 



Miss Mounce, has been abundantly confirmed by W. F. Hanna, 

 another investigator working in my laboratory. Mr. Hanna made 

 seventy new monosporous cultures of C. lagopus. Every one of 

 the seventy mycelia produced fruit-bodies. In some cultures the 

 fruit-bodies never elongated their stipes or expanded their pilei, in 

 others the stipes elongated slightly and the pilei expanded slightly 

 and, in yet others, 

 the stipes elongated 

 and the pilei ex- 

 panded in a normal 

 manner. In every 

 one of the seventy 

 cultures, however, 

 the fruit-bodies were 

 sterile in a greater 

 or less degree. The 

 gills were invariably 

 white or whitish and 

 never decidedly grey 

 or black. In many 

 fruit - bodies there 

 was a complete ab- 

 sence of spores, 

 while in other fruit- 

 bodies a few spores 

 could be detected by 

 examining the gills 

 with the microscope. 



In one fruit-body, raised by Mr. Hanna on a mycelium which 

 originated from a single spore, although the gills were whitish, a 

 considerable number of spores were produced, although far fewer 

 than in normal fruit-bodies. These spores, however, were not dis- 

 charged from their sterigmata and therefore did not give rise to 

 any spore-deposit on a glass slide placed beneath the pileus. As 

 autodigestion of the gills proceeded, black lines were formed at the 

 gill-edges owing to the accumulation there of the undischarged 

 spores. Mr. Hanna removed the spores from the gills and sowed 



Fig. 137. — Coprinus lagopus. Fertility and sterility 

 of fruit-bodies. Some large fruit-bodies grown 

 from spores on sterilised horse-dung balls in the 

 laboratory at Winnipeg. The one to the right, 

 with the grey pileus, has developed spores normally 

 (it shed them subsequently). The other two are 

 colourless, showing that they have not developed 

 their spores (they remained sterile and did not 

 produce a spore-deposit). Cf. Figs. 20 and 21, 

 Vol. TI, pp. 71 and 72. Natural size. 



