34 STUDIES OF AMERICAN FUNGI. 



or after heavy rains, in late spring or during the autumn, and also 

 in the summer. From the rapid growth of many of the mush- 

 rooms we are apt to be taken by surprise to see them all up some 

 day, when the day before there were none. The shaggy-mane 

 often furnishes a surprise of this kind. In our lawns we are accus- 

 tomed to a pretty bit of greensward with clumps of shrubbery, and 

 here and there the overhanging branches of some shade tree. On 

 some fine morning when we find a whole flock of these shaggy- 

 manes, which have sprung up during the night, we can imagine that 



Figure 32. Coprinus comatus. " Buttons," some in section showing gill slits 

 and hollow stem ; colors white and black. (Natural size.) 



some such kind of a surprise must have come to Browning when he 

 wrote these words : 



" By the rose flesh mushroom undivulged 

 Last evening. Nay, in to-day's first dew 



Yon sudden coral nipple bulged, 

 Where a freaked, fawn colored, flaky crew 



Of toadstools peep indulged." 



The plant is called shaggy-mane because of the very shaggy 

 appearance of the cap, due to the surface being torn up into long 

 locks. The illustrations of the shaggy mane shown here represent 

 the different stages of development, and the account here given is 

 largely taken from the account written by me in Bulletin 168 of the 

 Cornell University Agr. Exp. Station. 



