Researches on Fungi

Abstract

PROF. BULLER'S “Researches on Fungi” is well known to mycologists. The first volume appeared in 1909, the second in 1922, the third in 1924. The present volume is divided into two parts. The first of these may be regarded as a continuation of the previous volume, for it is concerned with the further study of the types of fruit-body of the genus Coprinus. Eleven subtypes of fruit-body organisation are distinguished by the author, six non-Coprinus (Æqui-hymeniferii) and five Coprinus (Inæqui-hymeniferii). Nine of these had been described in detail in the two previous volumes, leaving the curtus and plicatilis types for the present one. Both these types contain only one species. These are set out with precision, though probably most mycologists will be content with reading the summary. Coprinus plicatilis is noteworthy in that it does not undergo autodigestion in the manner of the other species, to which they owe the popular name ‘inky cap’, though the spores ripen and are discharged as in other Coprini. An interesting point about C. curtus is that its fruit-bodies may be rendered sterile by fumes from fresh horse-manure.

Researches on Fungi. Vol. 4: Further Observations on the Coprini together with some Investigations on Social Organisation and Sex in the Hymenomycetes.

By Prof. A. H. Reginald Buller. Pp. xiii + 329 + 4 plates. (London, New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1931.) 21s. net.