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RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



different height above the paraphyses. As a consequence all jostling 

 and mechanical disturbance was prevented and the hymenium pro- 

 duced and discharged its spores with the maximum of efficiency. 

 Coprinus micaceus is the only species of Coprinus which, so far as 

 I know, is so complex as to possess tetramorphic basidia ; but, as 

 we have seen, tetramorphic basidia are present in the hymenium 



Fig. 155. — Coprinus micaceus. The hymenium in surface view. A, spores drawn 

 with a camera -lucida, basidia and paraphyses added semi-diagrammatically, so 

 as to show all the elements of the hymenium in one figure ; a, b, c, and d are 

 basidia of the first, second, third, and fourth generations respectively ; e, para- 

 physes. B, camera -lucida plan of a piece of hymenium showing basidia, b, and 

 paraphyses, p. C, a similar area but including a cystidium, c. Magnification, 

 440. 



of certain non-Coprinus Agaricineae, namely, Lepiota cepaestipes and 

 Psathyrella disseminata (Figs. 9 and 29, pp. 16 and 51). 



The relative positions of the basidia and paraphyses are shown 

 in Fig. 155 at B, Each basidium is surrounded and isolated from 

 its neighbours by three or four or, more rarely, by five paraphyses. 

 Here, as elsewhere in the Coprini, the sterile paraphyses are abso- 

 lutely essential constituents of the hymenium in that they function 

 as space-making agents : by their presence they prevent adjacent 

 basidia, which simultaneously bear full-sized spores, from jostling 

 one another during spore-development and spore-discharge. At 

 the same time, they support the basidia and act as the elastic 

 elements of the hymenium. The paraphyses are at first very small ; 



