COPRINUS CURTUS 



19 



as in Coprinus comatus and C. sterquilinus, the stipe is completely 

 surrounded with a white and sterile sheath. As the pileus opens, 

 this sheath becomes split from below upwards along lines coincident 

 with the interlamellar spaces. The two pieces of the sheath left 

 attached to the free edge of each gill in an expanding pileus form 

 a flange (Fig. 15, A and B, m) comparable with the flanges already 

 described on the gills of C. comatus and C. sterquilinus. The thick- 

 ness of each gill, measured between the outer walls of the paraphyses, 



Fig. 13. — Coprinus ctirtus. Vertical sections through various fruit-bodies, A, B, 

 and C, stages in the expansion of the pileus (the lower part of the stipe has 

 been omitted) : A and B, the spores are almost ripe ; C, the pileus is turned 

 slightly upwards and is shedding spores. D and E, stages in the expansion 

 of the pileus on a larger scale : D, the pileus-fiesh is growing radially below 

 and is raising the gills ; E, the pileus is now horizontally outstretched ; the 

 gills are free from the stipe and are about to begin to liberate their spores ; 

 the part of each gill below the broken line was in a vertical plane or almost 

 so, while the part above the line was arched laterally (c/. Fig. 19). A, B, and 

 C, natural size (large fruit-bodies) ; D and E (drawn with camera-lucida), 

 magnified 6 ■ 8 times. 



is only 0-05-0 -08 mm. Few other agarics have such delicate 

 gills. 



The Hymenium. — The hymenium exactly resembles in structure 

 that of Coprinus comatus and C. sterquilinus. It consists of a 

 conthmous sheet of paraphyses in which the basidia are set at 

 intervals, long and short basidia alternating with one another. 

 Pleurocystidia are absent (Figs. 14 and 15). 



The gills of Coprinus curtus are so very narrow that it is difficult 

 to cut them away from a pileus, lay them flat on a slide, and sketch 

 their hymenium satisfactorily. Hence, in preparing the material 

 from which the camera-lucida drawings shown in Fig. 14 were made, 

 the following new method was adopted. 



