APPENDIX 
i93 
away into an inky fluid, which is visited by flies, the flies 
licking up the ink and thus dispersing the spores. But Pro¬ 
fessor Buller has demonstrated that the spores are in reality 
distributed by the wind, and that the spore-discharge from a 
gill is not general all over its surface, as in a mushroom, but 
extremely local. It begins on both sides simultaneously, 
towards the base. After the basidia have discharged their 
spores they become disorganized and turn into fluid. They 
are thus cleared out of the way to allow the pileus gradually 
to turn outwards, and cause the production of spaces between 
the lower end of the gills, higher and higher up as these 
become shorter and shorter. 
“ If one allows an upright fruit-body (sporophore of a 
Coprinus), with its stipe placed in wet sand, to shed its spores 
under a bell-glass, one finds by microscopic examination that 
the inky drops produced by autodigestion (‘ deliquescence ’) 
consist of a brown fluid containing granules, but practically 
free from spores. The fluid, therefore, is not made black 
by spores. The colour is probably due to an oxydase which 
unites the oxygen of the air with some substance liberated 
from the dying cells, for it was found that the colourless 
juice squeezed from an unripe pileus turns brown in a few 
hours. The drops collect only on the rim of the pileus, 
where they do not interfere with the liberation of the spores 
into the air. If paper is placed around the base of the 
stipe, a black spore-deposit collects upon it, which is similar 
to that produced under the same conditions by an ordinary 
Agaric. 
“ In Nature, the fluid produced by autodigestion is largely 
got rid of by evaporation. The amount of it adhering to 
the pileus rim varies considerably according to the state of 
the weather. In very dry weather it often happens that 
actual drops are not formed at all. On the other hand, 
dripping is favoured by a saturated atmosphere, and was 
found to take place regularly with fruit-bodies placed in a 
damp chamber.” 
13 
