224 Transactions British Mycological Society. 
Within a week after the inoculation of the two vessels, the 
inoculation holes became filled with dense white mycelium. In 
the specimen jar, at the end of twenty days, the mycelium had 
completely covered the surface of the culture medium with fine 
white silky hyphae; and thin almost invisible hyphae had made 
their way through the soil on both sides of the holes. In the 
three-litre beaker, the mycelium grew in a similar manner and, 
at the end of six weeks, it had completely covered the medium. 
A little later, in each culture, woolly knots of mycelium 
appeared on the mycelial strands that traversed the upper 
surface of the soil layer, but for a long time no further changes 
could be observed. 
During the summer no fruit-bodies were produced, but 
toward the end of September, i.e. almost nine months after 
inoculation, a tiny fruit-body rudiment was observed in the 
specimen jar coming up at the surface of the soil. The rudiment 
developed rapidly and, in the course of a few days, became 
converted into a very large normal fruit-body of Coprinus 
comatus, which elongated its stipe, expanded its pileus, and shed 
an abundance of spores within a week from the time the rudi- 
ment was first noticed. The spores were found to germinate 
readily in potato agar and fairly well in dung agar. 
In the specimen jar, about three weeks after the fruit-body 
just described had shed its spores, and about ten months after 
inoculation, many white mycelial knots appeared on the outer 
cylindrical surface of the soil and a few centimetres below the 
soil’s upper surface. Ten days later three new fruit-bodies, 
which had originated in tiny crevices beneath the soil’s surface, 
had pushed their way through the soil into the air. They were 
creamy white in colour, they had a smooth, gelatinous, oily- 
looking surface, and they were somewhat conical in shape with 
a base about 5 mm. in diameter. Five days later they were 
7 cm. high and each of them was distinctly divided into pileus 
and stipe. The pilei, which shaded from the cream colour below 
to a deep buff at their apices, showed signs of becoming scaly, 
but each had the annulus still attached to its base. After ten 
days, in each of the three fruit-bodies, the stipe was rapidly 
elongating, the annulus had become detached from the base of 
the pileus and had fallen upon the stipe, expansion of the pileus 
had begun, the gills were passing through shades of red to black, 
and it was evident that the spores were maturing. During the 
next two days, the three pilei opened and discharged vast 
numbers of spores. 
In the meanwhile, the second or beaker culture of Copvinus 
comatus had produced a single fruit-body which shed its spores 
five days before the three fruit-bodies just described. The de- 
