346 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ocToBER 
in lateral branches of the genealogical tree, as in clover. It is hard, too, to 
get rid of it. The adhesions may skip an entire generation in annuals and 
reappear in the next, just as in perennials they may skip a year. The mani- 
festation of the property depends to a high degree upon external conditions. 
All the facts show that the heredity of adhesions is ordinarily latent, man- 
ifesting itself only occasionally. 
The fact of heredity obliges us to suppose for the symphyses material 
carriers (pangens) in the protoplasts. But neither the number nor the influence 
of these appear to be ordinarily great enough to assure more than an occa- 
sional appearance of the anomalies. A concurrence of very favorable condi- 
tions seems always to be necessary to their manifestation, at least unless they 
have been fixed and accumulated by selection. C. R. B 
Mr. GEORGE MASSEE has made an exhaustive study of the genus Cop- 
rinus,”” recognizing 165 species, 34 of which are credited to the United States 
and 20 of them peculiar to it. The evolution of form in the Agaricinee is 
represented as proceeding from such primitive types as Marasmius, etc, in 
which “the pileus is sessile or stemless and fixed by its back to the substra- 
tum, the gills being uppermost and consequently entirely unprotected from 
the earliest stage of development.” From this primitive type of structure 
there are three leading lines of departure: (1) turning the hymenium ome a 
wards ; (2) the acquisition of a central stem ; (3) the freedom of the gills from : 
the stem. The Agaricinez do not form a single group showing the page 
sequence, but are broken up into four series, each running through the in ie 
of development indicated. These four series are characterized by the ee ¥ 
of the spores (black, brown, pink or salmon, white), the Melanospor® being 
the oldest and the Leucospore being the youngest. The chief biological 
feature of Coprinus is the deliquescence of the gills at maturity ino liquid 
which drips to the ground, carrying the mature spores along with it. 2 
primitive and relatively imperfect mode of spore-dissemination, as Comp" ” 
with the minute, dry, wind borne spores of the other Agaricinee, indicates 
that in Coprinus we have the remnant of a primitive group of fungi from 
which have descended the entire modern group of Agaricinee with . be ; 
borne spores ; and which can be traced back to the still more pi 
terranean fungi which are the common ancestors of the entire group we 
Basidiomycetes. Evidences of the antiquity of Coprinus are seen wy mite 
world wide distribution of the genus, and the limited area occupied by SP" 
Of the modern agarics the Melanosporz are most closely allied oe Co 
being directly derived from it, and, in fact, the gills of many aoe 
Melanospore show a tendency to deliquesce. Attention is also called t0 ie 
fact that while liquefaction of the elements of the hymenium was 4 
e 
Ann. Bot. ro: 123-184. 1896. 
