CHAPTER X 



THE AEQUI-HYMENI1FERAE : THE PANAEOLUS SUB-TYPE 

 ILLUSTRATED BY PANAEOLUS CAMPANULATUS 



The Panaeolus Sub-type Panaeolus campanulatus : General Remarks on 

 the Sporophore The Phenomenon of Mottling The Spore-fall Period 

 Apparatus and Method for Observing the Development of the Hymenium 

 Observations on the Developing Hymenium Successive Generations of 

 Basidia Description of the Hymenium of Panaeolus campanulatus in Detail 

 Significance of the Development of the Basidia in Successive Generations on 

 any One Hymenial Area, and of the Existence of Various Areas The Spores 

 which are Wasted Significance of the Protuberancy of Mature Basidia 

 Significance of the Collapse of Exhausted Basidia The Relative Position 

 of the Basidia and the Spores of One Generation The Position of the Sterig- 

 mata in the Hymenomycetes generally and in Panaeolus campanulatus The 

 Cheilocystidia. 



The Panaeolus Sub-type. The Panaeolus Sub-type of fruit- 

 body organisation possesses all the general characters already 

 described for the Aequi-hymeniiferous Type : the gills are wedge- 

 shaped in cross-section and positively geotropic, the hymenium 

 looks downwards to the earth, and every part of the hymenium 

 produces and liberates spores during the whole period of spore- 

 discharge. 



The most striking of the special characteristics of the Panaeolus 

 Sub-type is that the hymenium is made up of a mosaic-work of 

 small, irregular, local areas. In some of these the spore-bearing 

 basidia are relatively advanced in that they are approaching the 

 climax of their development which ends in spore-discharge and 

 collapse, whilst in others the spore-bearing basidia are relatively- 

 young as is shown by the fact that the spores on their sterigmata 

 are very immature. In species with pigmented spores and these 

 alone have so far been found to belong to the Panaeolus Sub-type 

 owing to the fact that the pigment is produced during the second 



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