COPRINUS MICACEUS 355 



in it of a large number of waste spores, which have gradually 

 collected in the zone of the products of autodigestion as this has 

 moved upwards. 



A series of stages in the . discharge of the spores and in the 

 destruction of the gills from below upwards is shown in Fig. 158 

 (p. 354). The drawing A represents a very young fruit-body in 

 which the gUls are quite white owing to the fact that they do not 

 bear any ripe spores. At B is an older fruit-body with spores ripening 

 at the base of the gills. At C is shown a fruit-body in which the 

 discharge of the spores has just begun along the lower margins of 

 the gills, although toward the top of the gills the spores have not 

 yet begun to turn brown and are therefore far from being mature. 

 At D is a fruit-body in which spore-discharge is being carried on 

 with the maximum activity. Here the gills have already been 

 reduced somewhat in width by autodigestion. At E the pileus is 

 beginning to become revolute, spore-discharge is still extremely 

 active, and the gills have become considerably narrowed by auto- 

 digestion. At F the pileus is now quite revolute, spore-discharge 

 is ceasing, and the gills are very much reduced in size. Finally, 

 at G a fruit-body is shown which has an extremely revolute pileus, 

 and in which spore-discharge has entirely ceased. The spore- 

 streams shown diagrammatically below the pilei in C, D, E, and F, 

 are represented as being carried away by a light current of air 

 passing slowly from the left to the right of the Figure. The spore- 

 discharge period, during which a pileus passes from the stage shown 

 at C to the stage shown at G, is at least twenty-four hours in length. 

 The upward passage of the zone of spore-discharge is rather slow 

 relatively to that of Coprinus sterquilinus. However, the basidia 

 are much smaller and more crowded together in Coprinus micaceus 

 than in C. sterquilinus, so that a slower upward passage of the zone 

 of spore-discharge in the former fungus is only what one might 

 expect. 



Let us now turn our attention to the cystidia and study their 

 fate. Just before spore-discharge is about to begin, as we have 

 seen, the cystidia project from the gUls as free and mechanically 

 functionless pegs. All the cystidia are destroyed by autodigestion 

 and, contrary to what was once supposed, none of them fall out 



