69 
HOW MUSHROOMS ARE REPRODUCED. 
(Agaricus lacrymabundns. Fr.) 
By WORTHINGTON G. SMITH, F.L.S., M.A.I. 
^F.R.Hist.S, Ireland, &c. 
[PLATE CXXXH.] 
P OSSIBLY there is no branch of fungology so little under- 
stood as the reproductive process in the Hymenomycetes , 
of which family our common mushroom is a good example. 
Professor Sachs, in his recently published u Text-Book of 
Botany,” in referring to the Basicliomycetes (of which the 
Hymenomycetes is one family), says : “ Although the largest 
and most beautiful fungi belong to this order, yet their course 
of development is at present only very imperfectly known. In 
contrast to the variety of form occasioned by the alternation of 
generations in most other fungi, and to the singular pheno- 
mena of the mycelium of the Ascomycetes , it is remarkable that 
similar processes have not yet been established in this class. 
The origin from the mycelium of the usually large receptacles, 
and their further development, are known in their more con- 
spicuous features, as is also the mode of germination of their 
basidiospores ; but the history of the mycelium before it forms 
the receptacle is still unknown. “ I must therefore,” says the 
professor, “ content myself with a few morphological explana- 
tions of the development of the latter in the most striking 
forms of the Hymenomycetes and Gasteromycetes .” Unfortu- 
nately for Professor Sachs, the English editors of the “ Text- 
Book ” refer to (Ersted’s observations of the reproductive pro- 
cess in Agaricus variabilis as reproduced in the “ Quarterly 
Journal of Microscopical Science” for 1868, p. 18. As (Ersted 
founded his conclusions upon mycelium gathered from a mush- 
room-bed where A. variabilis is (as far as my experience goes) 
never found, his deductions lose a great deal of their value. 
Indeed, nearly the whole subgenus to which A. variabilis belongs 
is peculiar to decayed wood and moss. Formerly A. variabilis 
was included in the subgenus Crepidotus, but Professor Elias 
