14 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Coprini as is evident from the fact that one of them was obtained from 

 a manure heap and possessed the characteristically large cystidia 

 (PI. Ill, p-r).^ Now, as I have shown in a special paper, the basidia 

 of the Coprini are usually dimorphic, about one-half of them being 

 much longer than the other half .^ With the dimorphism is correlated 

 a crowding of the basidia together. Owing to the crowding, the spores 

 of the long basidia often overlap those of the short basidia. In the 

 Coprini, on this account, it is not so easy with low magnification to 

 distinguish the groups of four spores as it is in Panaeolus and many 

 other non-Coprinus species of Hymenomycetes. Doubtless, it was 

 the crowding of the spores together which led Micheli to believe that 

 in the Coprini the spores are scattered singly over the gill surface. 

 Since Micheli observed the spores of a Hydnum, of a Boletus, and of a 

 Clavaria, it is clear that he did not confine his attentions to dark- 

 spored fungi. However, of all the species which he used, none could 

 have been more favourable for his investigations than the Coprini, 

 for in them the gills are so extremely thin, that light easily passes 

 through their whole thickness, throwing up the black spores into vivid 

 relief; but even with reflected light, such as Micheli probably employ- 

 ed, the black spores stand out very clearly on the lighter background 

 of the general hymenial surface. 



In searching fungi for bodies equivalent to seeds, Micheli had 

 been highly successful; but this did not satisfy him. He was also 

 anxious to discover floral organs comparable with those of the Phan- 

 erogamia. Accordingly, on observing at the free margins of the gills 

 of species of stiped Agaricineae (his Fungus) some peculiar threadlike- 

 cells (PI. I, F, I, N, k), he immediately interpreted these structures as 

 being apetalous flowers. He says: "At the margin of the laminae are 

 produced apetalous flowers, naked, consisting of nothing but a cylin- 

 drical filament; in some species solitary or distinct from one another; 

 in others, however, collected into a mass or tuft."^ The margins of the 

 gills of many of the Agaricineae, e.g. Hypholoma CandoUeanwn, 

 Psilocyhe foenisecii, Lepiota cepaestipes, the cultivated Mushroom, 

 etc., are known to consist of projecting hyphae of a more or less special- 

 ized kind. Doubtless in some cases, it was these sterile elements which 

 we may term marginal hairs, that Micheli took for flowers; while in 

 other cases, as some of his illustrations seem to show, it may have been 

 the groups of four spores belonging to projecting basidia. The flowers 



1 Micheli, Nova Plantarum Genera, p. 133; cf. Tab. 73, fig. 1, I, Tab. 75, fig. 9. 

 and Tab. 79, fig. 4. 



'^ A. H. R. Buller, The Production and Liberation of Spores in the genus Coprinus, 

 Trans. Brit. Mycological Soc, 1911, pp. 348-350. 



' Micheli, loc. cit. p. 133. Illustrations of the supposed flowers are shown in 

 Tab. 73 and Tab. 76. 



