PANAEOLUS CAMPANULATUS 255 



Leucosporae has convinced me that many of them do not have 

 this organisation but some other different from it, and I have so 

 far not been able to find any white-spored species belonging to the 

 Panaeolus Sub-type. Among Leucosporae which certainly do not 

 belong to this Sub-type may be mentioned species of Marasmius, 

 Collybia, Armillaria, and Russula. It must be admitted, however, 

 that my investigations have not yet been sufficiently extended 

 to warrant the conclusion that the Panaeolus Sub-type does not 

 contain any species with colourless spores. Only further research 

 can decide this matter. 1 



In some of the species named, e.g. Psilocybe foenisecii and 

 Stropharia semiglobata, if the fruit-bodies are in good condition, 

 the mottling is almost as obvious as in the Panaeoli, but in other 

 species, e.g. Psalliota campestris, the Common Mushroom, the 

 phenomenon would certainly be overlooked unless one observed 

 the surface of the gills closely. Here the mottling has a fine texture, 

 but can easily be made out with the naked eye when one's attention 

 has been turned to it. 



In order to investigate the organisation of the hymenium in 

 Panaeolus campanulatus, a gill was removed from a fruit-body 

 grown in the laboratory, laid flat on a glass slide, and covered 

 with a large cover-glass. No mounting fluid was used. Under 

 these conditions the gill, protected as it was by the cover-glass 

 from rapid loss of water, remained living for a long time. The 

 cover-glass touched the upper hymenium only at a few places, so 

 that most of the hymenial elements were left undisturbed. 



On examination of the upper surface of a living gill under the 

 conditions described, the immediate cause of the mottling can be 

 readily determined. In a black area, a large number of basidia 

 are in almost precisely the same state of development : they each 

 bear four black or blackening spores and are so spaced that the 



1 It is possible that the Panaeolus arrangement of basidia exists in the large 

 fruit-bodies of Lepiota procera (vol. i, Figs. 14 and 15, pp. 44 and 45). In this 

 species, as in Panaeolus, I observed that the basidia are monomorphic, that the 

 basidia which bear spores are rather closely packed together, and that here and 

 there on the hymenium small groups of basidia can be seen in which all the spores 

 are not yet of full size and therefore are very young ; but, up to the present, 

 I have not been able to complete this investigation. 



