COPRINUS INK 



71 



drawings. He boiled the ink and then added some cloves to check 

 the development of moulds. 



Boudier,! in 1876, wrote the whole of the MS. of his Notice sur 

 Vencre de Coprin with the ink of Coprinus atramentarius, except 

 the paragraphs re- 

 lating to C. comatus, 

 which he wrote with 

 the ink of C. coma- 

 tus. TheMS. was ex- 

 hibited at a meeting 

 of the SocieteBotan- 

 ique de France and 

 the President re- 

 marked that the 

 ink which had been 

 used was truly ' ' tres- 

 beau noir " and that 

 at first glance it was 

 impossible to tell it 

 from ordinary ink. 



Boudier states 

 that the best Co- 

 prinus for making 

 Coprinus ink is C. 

 atramentarius (Fig. 

 45 ; also Vol. Ill, 

 Figs. 108-113, pp. 

 262-269) and that 

 the ink may readily 

 be prepared as fol- 

 lows. Gather some of the fruit-bodies just before they begin to 

 deliquesce and put them in a glass vessel. The fruit-bodies soon 

 undergo decomposition and a black hquid drips from them. Filter 

 the liquid through cheese-cloth. Often, at first, the ink is somewhat 

 pale : it is then best to let it stand for several days and at the end 



1 E. Boudier, " Notice sur I'encre de Coprin," Bull. Soc. Bot. de France, T. XXIII, 

 1876, pp. 299-302. 



Fig. 45. — Coprinus atramentarius, from which Coprinus 

 ink can be made. A group of fruit-bodies by a wooden 

 fence. Photographed at Sutton Park, Warwickshire, 

 by the late J. E. Titley. Reduced to about two- 

 sevenths the natural size. 



