=Hypholoma appendiculatum= Bull. =Edible.=--This species is common during late spring and in the summer. It grows on old stumps and logs, and often on the ground, especially where there are dead roots. It is scattered or cl.u.s.tered, but large tufts are not formed as in _H.

sublateritium_. The plants are 6--8 cm. high, the cap 5--7 cm. broad, and the stem 4--6 mm. in thickness.

The =pileus= is ovate, convex to expanded, and often the margin elevated, and then the cap appears depressed. It is fleshy, thin, whitish or brown, tawny, or with a tinge of ochre, and becoming pale in age and when dry. As the plant becomes old the pileus often cracks in various ways, sometimes splitting radially into several lobes, and then in other cases cracking into irregular areas, showing the white flesh underneath. The surface of the pileus when young is sometimes sprinkled with whitish particles giving it a mealy appearance. The =gills= are attached to the stem, crowded, becoming more or less free by breaking away from the stem, especially in old plants. They are white, then flesh colored, brownish with a slight purple tinge. The =stem= is white, smooth, or with numerous small white particles at the apex, becoming hollow. The =veil= is very delicate, white, and only seen in quite young plants when they are fresh. It clings to the margin of the cap for a short period, and then soon disappears.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 27.--Hypholoma appendiculatum (natural size), showing appendiculate veil. Copyright.]

Sometimes the pileus is covered with numerous white, delicate floccose scales, which give it a beautiful appearance, as in Fig. 26, from specimens (No. 3185 C. U. herbarium), collected on the campus of Cornell University among gra.s.s. The entire plant is very brittle, and easily broken. It is tender and excellent for food. I often eat the caps raw.

=Hypholoma candolleanum= Fr., occurs in woods on the ground, or on very rotten wood. It is not so fragile as _H. appendiculatum_ and the gills are dark violaceous, not flesh color as they are in _H. appendiculatum_ when they begin to turn, and nearly free from the stem.

=Hypholoma lacrymabundum= Fr.--This plant was found during September and October in wet gra.s.sy places in a shallow ditch by the roadside, and in borders of woods, Ithaca, N. Y., 1898. The plants are scattered or cl.u.s.tered, several often joined at the base of the stem. They are 4--8 cm. high, the cap 2--5 cm. broad, and the stem 4--8 mm. in thickness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 28.--Hypholoma lacrymabundum (natural size). Cap and stem tawny or light yellowish, with intermediate shades or shades of umber, surface with soft floccose scales. Copyright.]

The =pileus= is convex to expanded, sometimes broadly umbonate in age, and usually with radiating wrinkles extending irregularly. On the surface are silky or tomentose threads not much elevated from the surface, and as the plant ages these are drawn into triangular scales which are easily washed apart by the rains. The color is tawny or light yellowish with intermediate shades, darker on the umbo and becoming darker in age, sometimes umber colored, and stained with black, especially after rains where the spores are washed on the pileus. The flesh is tinged with light yellow, or tawny, or brown, soft, and easily broken. The =gills= are sinuate, adnate, somewhat ventricose, very rarely in abnormal specimens anastomosing near the margin of the pileus, at first light yellowish, then shading to umber and spotted with black and rusty brown as the spores mature, easily breaking away from the stipe, whitish on the edge. Drops of moisture sometimes are formed on the gills. =Basidia= abruptly clavate, 30--35 10--12 . =Cystidia= hyaline, thin walled, projecting above the hymenium 40 , and 14--15 broad. Spores black, purple tinged, broadly elliptical and somewhat curved, 9--11 7--8 .

The =stem= is fleshy to fibrous, the same color as the pileus, floccose scaly more or less up to the veil, smooth or white pruinose above the veil, straight or curved, somewhat striate below.

The =veil= in young plants is hairy, of the same texture as the surface of the pileus, torn and mostly clinging to the margin of the pileus, and disappearing with age.

The general habit and different stages of development as well as some of the characters of the plant are shown in Fig. 28 (No. 4620 Cornell University herbarium). The edible qualities of this plant have not been tested.

=Hypholoma rugocephalum= Atkinson.--This interesting species grows in damp places in woods. The plants are tufted or occur singly. They are 8--12 cm. high, the cap 6--10 cm. broad, and the stem 6--10 mm. in thickness.

The =pileus= is convex to expanded, and the margin at last revolute (upturned). The surface is marked by strong wrinkles (rugae), which radiate irregularly from the center toward the margin. The pileus is broadly umbonate, fleshy at the center and thinner toward the margin, the flesh tinged with yellow, the surface slightly viscid, but not markedly so even when moist, smooth, not hairy or scaly, the thin margin extending little beyond ends of the gills. The color is tawny (near fulvus). The =gills= are adnate, slightly sinuate, 5--7 mm. broad, in age easily breaking away from the stem and then rounded at this end, spotted with the black spores, lighter on the edge. The =spores= are black in ma.s.s (with a suggestion of a purple tinge), oval to broadly elliptical, inequilateral, pointed at each end, echinulate, or minutely tuberculate, 8--11 6--8 . The =basidia= are short, cylindrical; =cystidia= cylindrical, somewhat enlarged at the free end, hyaline, delicate, thin-walled, in groups of two to six or more (perhaps this is partly responsible for the black spotted condition of the gills). The =stem= is cylindrical, even, somewhat bulbous, of the same color as the pileus, but lighter above the annulus, irregular, smooth, fleshy, hollow, continuous with the substance of the pileus. The =annulus= is formed of a few threads, remnants of the veil, which are stained black by the spores. Figure 29 is from plants (No. 3202 C. U. herbarium) collected near Ithaca, July 18, 1899.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 8, FIGURE 29.--Hypholoma rugocephalum (7/8 natural size). Cap tawny, gills purple black, spotted. Copyright.]

STROPHARIA Fr.

The genus _Stropharia_ has purple-brown spores, the gills are attached to the stem, and the veil forms a ring on the stem.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 30.--Stropharia semiglobata (natural size). Cap and stem light yellow, viscid, gills brownish purple. Copyright.]

=Stropharia semiglobata= Batsch.--This species is rather common and widely distributed, occurring in gra.s.sy places recently manured, or on dung. The plants are scattered or cl.u.s.tered, rarely two or three joined at the base. They are 5--12 cm. high, the cap 1--3 cm. broad, and the stems 2--4 mm. in thickness. The entire plant is light yellow, and viscid when moist, the gills becoming purplish brown, or nearly black.

Stevenson says it is regarded as poisonous.

The =pileus= is rounded, then hemispherical (semi-globate), smooth, fleshy at the center, thinner toward the margin, even, very viscid or viscous when moist, light yellow. The =gills= are squarely set against the stem (adnate), broad, smooth, in age purplish brown to blackish, the color more or less clouded. The =spores= in ma.s.s, are brownish purple.

The =stem= is slender, cylindrical, becoming hollow, straight, even or bulbous below, yellowish, but paler at the apex where there are often parallel striae, marks from the gills in the young stage. The stem is often viscid and smeared with the glutinous substance which envelopes the plant when young, and from the more or less glutinous veil. The =ring= is glutinous when moist.

Figure 30 is from plants (No. 4613 C. U. herbarium) collected on one of the streets of Ithaca.

=Stropharia stercoraria= Fr., is a closely related plant, about the same size, but the pileus, first hemispherical, then becoming expanded and sometimes striate on the margin, while the stem is stuffed. The gills are said to be of one color and the ring floccose, viscose, and evanescent in drying. It occurs on dung, or in gra.s.sy places recently manured.

=Stropharia aeruginosa= Curt., the greenish _Stropharia_, is from 6--8 cm. high, and the pileus 5--7 cm. broad. The ground color is yellowish, but the plant is covered with a greenish slime which tends to disappear with age. It is found in woods and open places during late summer and in autumn. According to Stevenson it is poisonous.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] For a.n.a.lytical key to the genera see Chapter XXIV.

CHAPTER V.

THE BLACK-SPORED AGARICS.

The spores are black in ma.s.s, not purple tinged. For a.n.a.lytical keys to the genera see Chapter XXIV.

COPRINUS Pers.

The species of _Coprinus_ are readily recognised from the black spores in addition to the fact that the gills, at maturity, dissolve into a black or inky fluid. The larger species especially form in this way an abundance of the black fluid, so that it drops from the pileus and blackens the gra.s.s, etc., underneath the plant. In some of the smaller species the gills do not wholly deliquesce, but the cap splits on top along the line of the longer gills, this split pa.s.sing down through the gill, dividing it into two thin laminae, which, however, remain united at the lower edge. This gives a fluted appearance to the margin of the pileus, which is very thin and membranaceous.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 31.--Coprinus comatus, "s.h.a.ggy-mane," in lawn.]

The plants vary in size, from tiny ones to those which are several inches high and more than an inch broad. Their habitat (that is, the place where they grow) is peculiar. A number of the species grow on dung or recently manured ground. From this peculiarity the genus received the name _Coprinus_ from the Greek word [Greek: kopros], meaning dung. Some of the species, however, grow on decaying logs, on the ground, on leaves, etc.

=Coprinus comatus= Fr. =Edible.=--One of the finest species in this genus is the s.h.a.ggy-mane, or horse-tail mushroom, as it is popularly called. It occurs in lawns and other gra.s.sy places, especially in richly manured ground. The plants sometimes occur singly, or a 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 s.h.a.ggy-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 s.h.a.ggy-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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 32.--Coprinus comatus. "b.u.t.tons," some in section showing gill slits and hollow stem; colors white and black. (Natural size.)]

The plant is called s.h.a.ggy-mane because of the very s.h.a.ggy appearance of the cap, due to the surface being torn up into long locks. The ill.u.s.trations of the s.h.a.ggy 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 33.--Coprinus comatus (natural size).]

In Fig. 32 are shown two b.u.t.tons 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 b.u.t.ton 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 b.u.t.tons 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 b.u.t.ton the free edge of the gill is still closely applied to the stem, while in the small one the gills are separated a short distance from the stems showing "gill slits." Here, too, the connection of the margin of the pileus with the stem is still shown, and forms the veil. This kind of a veil is a marginal veil.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 34.--Coprinus comatus (natural size). This one entirely white, none of the scales black tipped.]

The stem is hollow even at this young stage, and a slender cord of mycelium extends down the center of the tube thus formed, as is shown in the sections.

The plants are nearly all white when full grown. The brown scales, so close together on the b.u.t.tons, are widely separated except at the top or center of the pileus, where they remain close together and form a broad cap.

A study of the different stages, which appear from the b.u.t.ton stage to the mature plant, reveals the cause of this change in color and the wide separation of the dark brown scales. The threads of the outer layer of the pileus, and especially those in the brown patches seen on the b.u.t.tons, soon cease to grow, though they are firmly entangled with the inner layers. Now the threads underneath and all through the plant, in the gills and in the upper part of the stem, grow and elongate rapidly.

This pulls on the outer layer, tearing it in the first place into small patches, and causing them later to be more widely separated on the mature plant. Some of these scales remain quite large, while others are torn up into quite small tufts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 35.--Coprinus comatus, sections of the plants in Fig. 33 (natural size).]

As the plant ages, the next inner layers of the pileus grow less rapidly, so that the white layer beneath the brown is torn up into an intricate tangle of locks and tufts, or is frazzled into a delicate pile which exists here and there between well formed tufts. While all present the same general characters there is considerable individual variation, as one can see by comparing a number of different plants. Figure 34 shows one of the interesting conditions. There is little of the brown color, and the outer portion of the pileus is torn into long locks, quite evenly distributed and curled up at the ends in an interesting fashion which merits well the term "s.h.a.ggy." In others the threads are looped up quite regularly into triangular tresses which appear to be knotted at the ends where the tangle of brown threads holds them together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 36.--Coprinus comatus, early stages of deliquescence; the ring is lying on the sod (natural size).]