8o 



RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



green. The germ-tube had issued from the termmal germ-pore of 

 the spore and had developed into a mycelium with coarse radiating 

 hyphae. Not a single septum is to be seen in the whole of the 

 mycelium, and yet the mycelium contains 233 nuclei. The mycehum 

 is therefore very markedly coenocytic. Each nucleus has a thin 

 inconspicuous membrane and a well-stained nucleolus. The my- 

 celium is in the haploid condition, for its nuclei are scattered about 



Fig. 50. — Coprinus sterquilinus. Spores which had fallen on 

 to a glass slide, photographed dry. Magnification, 500. 



in the cytoplasm. In certain places, as at the ends of the hyphae 

 d and e, the nuclei are in twos ; but there can be but little doubt 

 that this is due to active nuclear division and not to the association 

 of the nuclei in conjugate pairs. When a nucleus has just divided, 

 the pair of daughter nuclei must, perforce, at first be close together, 

 although a little later they may wander apart. 



In Nature, Spores of Coprinus sterquilinus which infect Horse 

 Dung have all been previously Swallowed by Horses.— When spores 

 of Coprinus sterquilinus are allowed to fall on sterilised horse dung 

 in the laboratory, infection of the dung rapidly takes place with a 

 subsequent production of normal fruit-bodies.^ One may therefore 

 1 Cf. these Researches, vol. iii, 1924. pp. 181-183. 



