COPRINUS PLICATILIS 6i 



COPRINUS PLICATILIS Fr. 



Pileus before expanding 6-10 mm. high, 5-8 mm. broad, ovate- 

 cyhndric, striate to the disc, without scales and usually without 

 hairs, brown, often darker at the apex, on expanding becoming 

 broadly convex but never becoming quite plane or revolute, the 

 margin directed obhquely downwards until withering ; when fully 

 expanded 12-22 mm. broad, varying up to 30 or even 40 mm. ; 

 the disc 4-6 mm. broad, varying up to 10 mm., brown, usually 

 darker than the rest of the pileus, distinctly depressed ; the convex 

 sides of the pileus greyish-brown and beautifully phcate owing to 

 the splitting of the gills from above downwards, without any hairs 

 or scales. Stipe 3 •5-9-0 cm. long, often 4-6 cm., swollen at the 

 extreme base, above evenly cyHndric, 1- 0-2-0 mm. thick, dull 

 white or white tinged with brown, smooth, hollow, at the point of 

 attachment in the expanded fruit-body separated from the gills 

 by a bare zone of pileus-flesh 0-5-2-0 mm. wide. Gills distant 

 from one another, never locked together by bridging cystidia, black, 

 at the end of the spore-discharge period often powdered black on 

 one side, in the fully expanded pileus horizontally extended, 

 narrow, broadly arched above where attached to the flesh, almost 

 straight below, usually 6-10 mm. long but varying in the largest 

 fruit-bodies up to 17 mm. long, 1-5-3-0 mm. broad, the inner ends 

 united to form a collar separated from the stipe by the zone of bare 

 flesh already mentioned, not undergoing autodigestion from below 

 upwards and thus persisting dry and intact during the spore- 

 discharge period and until the whole fruit-body collapses. Flesh 

 thick at the disc, over the gills very thin, at first furrowed but soon 

 spUt into rays as the pileus opens and the gills become cleft from 

 above downwards, date-brown, lighter as drying takes place. 

 During the ripening of the spores, the gills become progressively 

 black from below upwards. During the discharge of the spores, 

 the gills become progressively dull white from below upwards and 

 toward the stipe ; so that, in the field, when one looks down on 

 the wheel-like translucent pileus shedding spores, one can detect 

 how far spore-discharge has advanced by noting the breadth of 

 the outer white zone as compared with the diameter of the central 



