ANELLARIA SEPARATA 



substantially the same as my own. It 

 Massee's measurements do not repre- 

 sent the average for the species and 

 that he either examined a fruit-body 

 with unusually small spores or, by 

 inadvertence, allowed some error to 

 creep into his record of the figures 

 obtained. 



The annulus upon the stipe is a 

 structure which exhibits considerable 

 variation. In nature, it is sometimes 

 relatively much expanded and at 

 other times relatively inconspicuous, 

 although it is never absent. It is 

 usually composed of a continuous 

 membrane which takes the shape of 

 an inverted cup (cf. Figs. 125 and 

 127). Under cultivation, the annulus 

 is still more variable. In some of the 

 fruit-bodies reared in the laboratory, 

 the annulus was prefectly normal, 

 while in others it became divided into 

 long strings passing from the stipe to 

 the periphery of the pileus and thus 

 coming in a measure to resemble the 

 cortina in the genus Cortinarius 

 (Fig. 126). In yet other specimens no 

 annulus was left attached to the stipe 

 but instead there was a broad band of 

 sterile tissue attached to the edge of 

 the campanulate pileus. Some of the 

 specimens, if considered by them- 

 selves, would have been more fitly 

 included in the ringless genus Pan- 

 aeolus than in Anellaria. These obser- 

 vations seem to me to show that, after 

 all, the ring in Anellaria is not a very 



seems to me, therefore, that 



FIG. 125. Anellaria separata. A 

 fruit-body grown on horse 

 dung in confinement under 

 a bell-jar. The annulus, 

 covered with spores at the 

 top, is abnormally large. 

 The black spore-deposit on 

 the top of the pileus was 

 formed owing to convection 

 currents carrying spores up- 

 wards after their discharge 

 from the gills. Natural size. 



