Coprinus comatus

Coprinus comatus is the Ink Cap fungus.

It comes up shaped as a "lawyer's wig", but after a couple of days or so the cylindrical cap curls at the edges to make a parasol shape. The parasol gills are folded like a fan. Soon the edges turn into black fluid which is responsible for the term "ink cap". Within a few hours only the stem remains as a hollow column, while the cap shrinks and vanishes,

These specimens were growing beside a camelia which had dropped petals. Previously a liquid amber tree stood here, but was cut down and the stump ground away. The ink cap mycelium must be growing in the rotting saw-dust.

They are often found in wood-chip gardens.

Available 3D formats for
Coprinus comatus

3D formats: | W | X | U

| 1024X | 1024U | Anaglyph |

The small pictures on your computer screen do not contain all the 3D information of the original images.

If you have a 1024 pixel or wider screen, this particular fungus is available to fill 1024 pixels. Even that is insufficient to show the original 5 megapixel images produced by the digital camera, but gives more 3D levels than the small 720 pixel pairs normally shown here. Small pairs are provided because they download faster and can be seen on portable computers with 800 x 600 pixel screens. Bigger versions of all the 3D fungi may one day be available on a CD, but not yet!

Why do Basidiomycetes often look like parasols?

The spores are shot out of the germinal layer (hymenium) like little bullets. Now the fungal parasols usually come up after rain, because water is absorbed and makes them swell, often with considerable pressure. It is said C comatus can force its way up through a paved tennis court.

The "guns" (basidia) which fire the spores need to shoot into dry air. This is not the same as keeping your powder dry for a musket, because the "explosion" is actually powered by osmosis. Big molecules are turned into little sugar molecules which increases the osmotic pressure in the "guns" until they fire the spores. But this osmotic water comes up from the mycelium in the soil, not from moist air or surface water.

The "guns" are kept under a parasol, so that the spores fire or drop into a relatively dry environment and can be swept away in the wind, rather than stuck on the mushroom in a thick water layer which would "drown" the mechanism.

C comatus has an extra trick. The fan-like folds under the parasol are kept apart by little single cell "struts" (cystidia) so they do not stick together in the moist air. That still does not leave enough space for the spores to escape, so they are only shot from the edge of the parasol. The parasol then dissolves from the edge (turning into "ink" - autolysis) allowing another set of "guns" to reach the edge and fire more spores.