THE INK-CAPS 127 



closely set, and do not run on to the stalk ; the flesh is 

 white, but turns reddish-brown on exposure to the air when 

 cut or broken. It is well to avoid fungi which are either pure 

 white or brightly coloured, as well as those which contain milky 

 juice, or have a bad smell, or have a biting or bitter taste. 

 Several fungi besides the mushroom are edible, and the rest 

 are mostly harmless or only slightly injurious, but some are 

 very poisonous. 



Some of the mushroom-like toadstools (gill toadstools) are 

 very common. The Ink-Caps (Coprinus) give a very neat spore- 

 print, and when ripe they turn to a black fluid which can, after 

 filtering, be used instead of ink. One of the commonest is the 

 " lawyer's wig " toadstool (C. comatus, see Coloured Plate), which 

 grows in fields and lawns during spring, summer, and autumn, 

 forming clusters. The young fruits are egg-shaped, white, and 

 smooth, but later they become bell-shaped and brown, the gills 

 changing from white to pink. In a few more hours the edge of the 

 cap splits at various points into narrow strips, the gills turn black, 

 the tall stem falls over, and soon all that remains of the fruit is 

 a black stain on the ground. A small ink toadstool often occurs 

 on dirty dish-cloths in sculleries ; another nearly always appears 

 on horse-dung kept under a bell-jar for a few weeks. 



Few fungi are so short-lived as the ink toadstools, but many 

 show great rapidity of growth. As is well known, scores of 

 mushrooms may be gathered in the morning in a field which, 

 the evening before, showed no apparent signs of them, and some 

 of the bigger pore toadstools attain a great size in a short time. 

 One of these huge fungi is recorded, on good authority, as having 

 become over seven feet in circumference and thirty-two pounds 

 in weight after growing for four weeks. The remarkable growth 

 of fungi in all such cases is easily explained. The fruit, though 

 a solid body, has essentially the same structure as the under- 

 ground part. It consists of branching threads, closely inter- 

 woven, and each thread grows in length independently of the 

 others, while at the same time the general shape of the plant is 

 preserved. As might be expected, the greater part of the in- 

 crease in weight of rapidly growing fungi is due to the taking up 

 of water. As everyone knows, fungi spring up most abundantly 



