200 



Genus II.— Coprinus, 

 &ills membranaceous, deliquescent. Spores black.. 



SERIES, I.— PILEUS NOT PLICATO-SULCATE. 



COPKINUS COMATUS .-Fries^ 

 THE MANED AGARIC. 



BOTANICAL CHARACTERS. 



Pileus, cylindrical, obtuse, campaniilate, fleshy in the centre, but veiy- 

 ihin towai-ds the margin. The external surface soon torn up into fleecy scales, 

 with the exception of a cap at the top. 



Gills free, linear, and crowded. Quite white when young, becoming 

 rose-coloured, sepia, and then black, from the margin upwards. They then 

 expand quickly, cml up in shreds, and deliquesce into a black inky fluid which 

 stains the ground. 



Stem is a pure white, 4 to 5 inches high, contracting at the top, and bul- 

 bous at the base ; hollow, fibrOlose, stuffed with alight cottony web. The bulb 

 is solid and rooting ; the ring is moveable. 



This very elegant agaric has also been called Ag. cylindricus, Schoeff ; Ag. 

 tnphoides, Bull.; and Ar/. Jinietarius, Bolt. It is common throughout the sum- 

 mer and autumn months on road-sides, pastures, and waste places. It is 

 extremely variable in size : the illustration given is rather smaller than the 

 average size. Its general ai^pearance is so distinct and striking, that it cannot 

 possibly be mistaken for any other agaric. It grows so abundantly on waste 

 ground in the neighbourhood of dwellings and farm-yards that it may be called 

 the Agaric of Civilization ; and for both these reasons it is most valuable as an 

 edible agaric. If its meiits were known, it would be eaten as freely as the 

 common field mushroom. 



"The Maned Miishrooms" Bliss Plues has well said "grow in densa 

 clusters, each young plant like an attenuated egg, white and smooth. Presently 

 some exceed the others in rapidity of growth, and theii- heads get above the 

 gi'ound, the stem elongates rajudly, the ring falls loosely round the stem, the 

 margin of the pUeus enlarges, and the oval head assumes a bell shape ; then a 

 faint tint of brown si^reads universally or in blotches over the upper i^art of the 

 pUeus, and the whiteness of its gills changes to a dull pink. A few more houra 

 and the even edge of the i>ileus has split in a dozen places, the sections curl back, 

 melt out of all form into an inky fluid, and on the morrow's dawn a black stain. 

 on the ground will be all that remains. And so on with the others in succes- 

 sion." 



