COPRINUS INK 69 



suppose that, at the present day, one Type is gaining at the expense 

 of the other. 



Coprinus Ink.— Owing to the autodigestion of the gills, large 

 fruit-bodies of Coprinus atramentarius, C. comatus, C. picaceus, 

 C. sterquilinus, etc., when kept in a closed vessel, give rise to a 

 considerable quantity of a black and inky-looking fluid. Hence 

 the larger Coprini are popularly known in Enghsh-speaking countries 

 as Ink Fungi and in France as Encriers or Bouteilles a Vencre. 



Wrirren 



Wl 



rh 



Coprinus Ink, 



Ficj. 43. — Tlie words we; e written witli a brus}i dipped in the juice 

 of an autodigested pileus of Coprinus sterquilinus. In the 

 main, the blackness of the ink is due to the pre.sence of the 

 innumerable black spores. Reduced to two-tliirds the 

 original size. 



Boudier named the black fluid encre de Coprin, and we may refer 

 to it as Coprinus ink. 



The dark colour of Coprinus ink is due chiefly to the innumerable 

 black spores which it contains, but also to some extent to the dark 

 colour of the fluid in which the spores are suspended. A fruit- 

 body of Coprinus sterquilinus, which came up on horse dung in 

 the laboratory (c/. Fig. 42), was removed from its substratum and 

 was allowed to undergo autodigestion in a closed glass vessel. The 

 Coprinus ink which was developed contained vast numbers of very 

 black spores and was used to write the words shown in Fig. 43. 

 Another fruit-body of C. sterquilinus, which had shed about one-half 



