308 FUNGUS-FLORA. 



The stem is white, of a soft silky surface, and easily splits 

 in shining white filaments; it is hollow, but with a soft 

 silky down in the perforation. 



The curtain is white, soft, downy, and separates from the 

 rim of the pileus ; when the stem has attained but a small 

 part of its height, it is permanent, abiding near the bottom 

 of the stem, till the decay of the plant. 



The gills are, while the plant is young, covered with a 

 carnation-coloured powder, changing black in decay, rolling 

 upwards, and dissolving in a black turbid gelly. 



The pileus at first covered with a white downy epidermis 

 which soon disappears, and the surface becomes striated, and 

 of a soft, downy, livid, carnation colour ; which colour, both 

 in the young and old plants, consists of a soft powder, which 

 at last changes black and dissolves. 



Grows on new dung-hills. (Bolton.) 



** Atramentarii. 



Coprinus atramentarius. Fr. (fig. 10, p. 303.) 

 Pilens 2-3 in. high, same across when expanded, at first 

 ovate then expanded, often plicate and lobed, greyish, silky- 

 fibrous, minutely mealy, apex brownish and minutely 

 verruculose or squamulose, flesh thin ; gills crowded, free, 

 white then black with purple tinge ; stem 4-6 in. high, 

 ^- in. thick, white, silky-shining, hollow, ring basal, very 

 evanescent; spores 12 x 6 p.; cystidia numerous, sub- 

 cylindrical, large. 



Coprinus atramentarius, Fries, Epicr., p. 243 ; Cke., Illust., 

 t. 622 ; Cooke, Hdbk., p. 225. 



About old stumps, and on rich naked soil, but not on dung. 

 Usually clustered and often irregular from mutual pressure. 

 Gregarious, caespitose. Pileus 3|- in. or more high, sub- 

 carnoso, campanulate, obtuse, the edge uneven, dirty grey, 

 at length brownish, innato-fibrillose, more or less fur- 

 furaceous and corrugated, the apex often scaly. Gills very 

 broad and close, with numerous pellucid processes, ventricose, 

 umber, the margin white, rounded behind, quite free. Stem 

 3^ in. high, ^ in. thick, fistulose, juicy, fibrillose, at- 

 tenuated upwards, brittle, the substance banded concentri- 

 cally. There is generally a prominent mark at the base, 





