few together,
but often quite large numbers of them appear in a small area. They occur
most abundantly during quite wet weather, or after heavy rains, in late
spring or during the autumn, and also in the summer. From the rapid
growth of many of the mushrooms we are apt to be taken by surprise to
see them all up some day, when the day before there were none. The
shaggy-mane often furnishes a surprise of this kind. In our lawns we are
accustomed to a pretty bit of greensward with clumps of shrubbery, and
here and there the overhanging branches of some shade tree. On some fine
morning when we find a whole flock of these shaggy-manes, which have
sprung up during the night, we can imagine that some such kind of a
surprise must have come to Browning when he wrote these words:

"By the rose flesh mushroom undivulged
Last evening. Nay, in to-day's first dew
Yon sudden coral nipple bulged,
Where a freaked, fawn colored, flaky crew
Of toadstools peep indulged."

[Illustration: FIGURE 32.--Coprinus comatus. "Buttons," some in section
showing gill slits and hollow stem; colors white and black. (Natural
size.)]

The plant is called shaggy-mane because of the very shaggy appearance of
the cap, due to the surface being torn up into long locks. The
illustrations of the shaggy mane shown here represent the different
stages of development, and the account here given is largely taken from
the account written by me in Bulletin 168 of the Cornell University Agr.
Exp. Station.

[Illustration: FIGURE 33.--Coprinus comatus (natural size).]

In Fig. 32 are shown two buttons of the size when they are just ready to
break through the soil. They appear mottled with dark and white, for the
outer layer of fungus threads, which are dark brown, is torn and
separated into patches or scales, showing between the delicate meshes of
white threads which lie beneath. The upper part of the button is already
forming the cap, and the slight constriction about midway shows the
lower boundary or margin of the pileus where it is still connected with
the undeveloped stem.

At the right of each of these buttons in the figure is shown a section
of a plant of the same age. Here the parts of the plant, though still
undeveloped, are quite well marked out. Just underneath the pileus layer
are the gills. In the section one gill is exposed to view on either
side. In the section of the larger button the free edge of the gill is
still closely