Part 41

Cap at first sub-globose, then curved, the surface smooth and satiny when dry, creamy white; gills close and slightly rounded at the inner extremity towards the stem, free from the stem, white; stem white, smooth, hollow, and bulbous at the base; ring thick, distinct, movable, white. The gills, soon after gathering, become suffused with a faint pinkish or fleshy tint. The spores are white, sub-elliptical. Specimens occur in which there is a slight granulation in the centre of the cap, but they are rare. The variety squamosa shows the surface of the cap, somewhat broken into thick scales.

L. naucinoides is a very clean and attractive looking mushroom, usually symmetrical in shape. It is a fleshier mushroom than L. procera, and is found in grassy places, in lawns, sometimes in gardens, or by roadsides, especially where the soil is rich. The specimens figured in Plate XI were gathered in a rose garden, growing in loamy soil. Specimens have been received from different States, some of them much larger than those here illustrated.

This mushroom is recorded by some authors as equal in flavor to the Parasol mushroom. When stewed with butter it makes a very appetizing dish.

There is a fatally poisonous mushroom to which it bears some resemblance, and which might be taken for it, viz., Amanita verna, or "Spring mushroom." It is therefore necessary, in order to guard against such a mistake, to give particular attention to the characteristics of these two mushrooms. They are both white throughout, and both have white spores and ringed stem. Amanita verna, however, carries a white volva or cup-shaped sheath at the base of the stem, and the gills do not show a pinkish or flesh colored tinge at any stage. In Lepiota naucinoides, as in all the Lepiotas, the volva is wanting. Amanita verna is apt to be moist and clammy to the touch, and is tasteless. L. naucinoides is dry, and has a pleasant flavor. The first is found wholly in woods; the second prefers pastures, open grassy places, and gardens, though sometimes found in light woods. I have never found an Amanita in a lawn, pasture, or garden.

An edible mushroom, Agaricus (Psalliota) cretaceus, found in pastures, bears a slight resemblance to L. naucinoides, when the color of the spores and gills are not taken into consideration. In the former the gills very quickly change from their early stage of rosy pink to a dark purplish-brown color, like that of the common mushroom. The spores are purplish-brown, while in L. naucinoides the pinkish hue which tinges the fading plant is very faint, and changes to a very light tan color with age. The spores being white, the gills retain their white color for a long time, never changing to dark brown.

L. Americana Pk. A. & S., L. excoriata Schaeff., and L. rubrotincta Pk. have been tested and are of good flavor.

L. Americana has a reddish or reddish-brown cap, umbonate, with close adpressed scales and white flesh. The gills are broad and free from the stem, sometimes anastomosing near it, white; stem white, hollow, tapering towards the cap, annulate. When dried the whole plant has a brownish-red hue. When cut or bruised it sometimes exudes a reddish juice. Miss Banning reports specimens found in Druid Hill Park, Baltimore. I have gathered very beautiful specimens in Montgomery county, Md. This mushroom sometimes grows to a very large size.

L. excoriata has a pale fawn-colored cap, slightly umbonate, with thin cuticle, breaking into scales; gills remote, white; stem white, hollow, and short, nearly cylindrical. Odor faint, pleasant.

L. rubrotincta Pk. "Red-tinted Agaric." Cap reddish or pinkish, broadly umbonate and clothed with adpressed scales; gills whitish, free, and close; stem nearly equal or slightly thickened at the base, with a well-developed persistent white or pinkish ring. Spores white, sub-elliptical.

L. holosericeus Fries has a fleshy white cap, soft, silky, and fibrillose, a solid bulbous stem, with persistent broad, reflexed ring, and free ventricose, white gills. Edible. It is found in gardens and cultivated places.

L. acutesquamosa Wein, found in greenhouses and soil in gardens, is a heavy but not very tall species. The cap is obtuse, and fleshy, at first floccose. As the cap expands it bristles with erect pointed tufts or scales. The gills are white or yellowish, lanceolate and simple, free from the stem. Stem bulbous, somewhat stuffed, rough or silky below the ring, and downy above. Ring persistent. Color of cap whitish or light brown, with darker scales.

L. granulosus Batsch. Cap thin, wrinkled or corrugated, granulose, mealy; gills white, reaching the stem, sometimes free. Plants very small and varying in color--pink, yellow, and white, according to variety.

L. amiantha. Plants very small, ochraceous in color, with yellow flesh and white gills adnate and crowded.

L. cepaestipes Sow. Cap thin, broad, sub-membranaceous, broadly umbonate, adorned with mealy evanescent scales, margin irregular; gills white, at length remote. Stem hollow and floccose, narrow at top, ventricose; ring evanescent. Generally found in hothouses. Cap 1 to 3 inches broad. Stem 3 to 6 inches high. Spores white.

L. cristata is a common species found on lawns and in fields where the grass is short. The plants are small, the cap from 1/2 to 1-1/2 inches in width. Not very fleshy. The cuticle of the cap is at first continuous and smooth but soon breaks into reddish scales. The stem is fistulose, slender and equal; gills free. Odor and taste somewhat strong and unpleasant.

PLATE XI-1/2.

=Ag. (Lepiota) cepaestipes=, variety =cretaceus= Peck (=Lepiota cretacea=).

EDIBLE.

This very delicate and beautiful agaric is found on tan and leaves in hothouses.

The specimens here delineated were gathered in one of the hothouses of the Agricultural Department and first described and figured in Food Products, No. 2, of the report of the Division of Microscopy. The plants are a pure white throughout, and both stem and pileus are covered with small chalk-white mealy tufts. Berkeley says, "this species is probably of exotic origin, as it never grows in the open air." It is also met with in the hothouses of Europe. Specimens have been received from contributors who gathered them in greenhouses in different localities. This species should not be confounded with the purplish-brown spored mushroom Agaricus (Psalliota) cretaceus, which has pink gills turning to dark brown and is allied to the common meadow mushroom.

Lepiota cretacea is a delicious mushroom when broiled, or cooked in a chafing dish, and served on hot buttered toast. It has a pleasant taste when raw.

Lepiota Morgani Peck, the "Green-Spored Lepiota," is an exception to the general type of Lepiotas in the color of its gills and spores. It is western and southern in its range. This species is described by Peck in the Botanical Gazette of March, 1897, p. 137, as follows: "Pileus fleshy, soft, at first sub-globose, then expanded, or depressed, white, the brownish or alutaceous cuticle breaking up into scales except on the disk; lamellae close, lanceolate, remote, white, then green; stem firm, equal, or tapering upwards, sub-bulbous, smooth, webby-stuffed, whitish, tinged with brown, annulus rather large, movable; flesh both of the pileus and stem white, changing to reddish, and then to yellowish hue when cut or bruised; spores ovate, sub-elliptical, mostly uninucleate, .0004 to .0005 inches long, .0003 to .00032 broad, sordid green.

"Plant 6 to 8 inches high, pileus 5 to 9 inches broad, stem 6 to 12 lines thick. Open dry grassy places. Dayton, Ohio. A. P. Morgan."

AGARICINI.

Genus Cortinarius Fries. This genus is distinguished by a cob-web-like veil, dry persistent gills, which in the mature plants become discolored, and pulverulent with the rusty or ochraceous colored spores. The veil is very delicate, resembling a spider's web. It is not concrete with the cuticle of the cap, but extends from its margin to the stem, in the young plants sometimes concealing the gills, but disappearing as the cap expands. Sometimes a few filaments are seen depending from the margin of the cap or encircling the stem.

In the young plants of this genus the gills vary very much in color. They are whitish, clay-color, violet, dark purple, blood-red, etc., according to species, but, as the plants mature, the gills become dusted with the rust-colored falling spores, and with age usually become a rusty ochraceous, or cinnamon color. The stem in some of the species is distinctly bulbous and in others equal, cylindrical, or tapering. In identifying the species it is necessary, in order to ascertain the true color of the gills, to examine the plants at different periods of growth.

The genus Cortinarius is a large one, and contains many beautiful species. It is mainly confined to temperate regions. Not a single species has been recorded as found in Ceylon, the West Indies, or Africa, but one tropical species is found in Brazil. Nearly four hundred species have been described, and over three hundred and seventy of these belong to the United States and Europe. A few are found in the extreme southern or temperate portion of South America, and several are reported from a temperate elevation among the Himalayas. Sweden and Great Britain, with their temperate climates, claim a large proportion of the European species. Not many of the Cortinarii have been recorded as edible, and none as dangerous. The Rev. M. J. Berkeley records, however, a case of poisoning by one of the species, C. (Inoloma) bolaris Pers., which though not fatal was somewhat alarming, the symptoms being great oppression of the chest, profuse perspiration, and the enlargement for two days of the salivary glands of the patient. I have seen no other statements relating to the poisonous properties of this species, and the results alluded to may have been owing to some individual idiosyncrasy.

Berkeley, in his "Outlines," gives the following description of this mushroom: "Pileus fleshy, obsoletely umbonate, growing pale, variegated with saffron-red, adpressed, innate scales; stem stuffed, then hollow, nearly equal, squamose, of the same color as the cap; gills subdecurrent, crowded, watery, cinnamon color. Cap 1 to 2 inches broad. Stem 2 to 3 inches long." In beech woods in September and October.