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Developmental variants in fruiting of Coprinus cinereus were induced by mutagenizing oidia of the homokaryotic fruiting strain CopD5-12 with UV light. Through screening of 2,696 isolates, 1,018 strains exhibited defects in fruiting and were classified into 8 groups: (1) knotless variants, which fail to form hyphal knots, the first visible sign of fruiting; (2) primordiumless variants, which form hyphal knots but fail to develop fruit-body primordia; (3) maturationless variants, which form fruit-body primordia but do not form mature fruit bodies; (4) elongationless variants, which form mature fruit bodies with short stipes; (5) expansionless variants, which form mature fruit bodies with unexpanded pilei; (6) sporeless variants, which fail to produce black basidiospores, resulting in fruit bodies with white pilei after maturation; (7) compound type, which includes variants exhibiting several of the phenotypes described above; (8) others, including variants that produce a "dark stipe" even under in light/dark conditions, which is formed under continuous darkness in the wild-type. Two elongationless variants were characterized histologically.

Cell walls isolated from rapidly elongating stipes of Coprinus macrorhizus basidiocarps lost 55 % of their dry weight during 24 h incubation at 37 O C . Neutral sugars accounted for 73 % of the solubilized products, glucose being the major sugar component. In the carbohydrate fraction solubilized after relatively short periods of autolysis, polymeric (degree of polymerization > lo), dimeric and monomeric components were detected, and the larger