32 Rhodora [ FEBRUARY 
published a paper by Nabokich ' in which he reaches the same conclu- 
sion as Duchartre. Nabokich used cut roots of about a dozen different 
species, and found in all but one (doubtful) case a slight loss of weight 
in the saturated atmosphere of a thermostat. 
(To be continued. ) 
UNUSUAL VARIATIONS OF TWO COMMON AGARICS. 
H. WEBSTER. 
To say that Armillaria mellea is variable in its appearance is to 
fall far short of adequately expressing the truth in regard to this com- 
mon agaric. Like Zaccaria laccata, it puts on such an extremely un- 
familiar look at times that one almost loses faith in the fixity of specific 
limits. Although typical forms are rarely wanting in its fruiting season, 
others are always abundant which, in color, surface, size, proportions, 
and especially in the character of the veil, are more or less striking in 
the tendency which they show to efface more or less completely some 
normally essential characteristic. Perhaps the taste is as constant as 
anything about the plant, and it may often be relied on to resolve a 
doubt. On the veil and ring no dependence can be placed whatever. 
Typically strong and fibrous, and even forming a wide-spreading, per- 
sistent collar, the veil is sometimes almost or entirely wanting at ma- 
turity. In a form found in Cambridge in October, 1898, and shown to 
the writer, the veil was glutinous and transparent, except immediately 
about the stem. ‘The fibrous nature of the outer portions could not be 
detected by the naked eye any more than in the veils of Cortinarius 
collinitus or of Hygrophorus fuligineus. The glutinous character of 
the veil extended to the surface of the pileus which was extremely 
viscid. The plants were collected after a rain. 
From several stations near Boston came reports last autumn of a 
form of the common Lefiota naucina, to which the name of “Smooth 
Agaric” has been given, in which the pileus was covered with brown 
scales. In two cases specimens were submitted which showed this 
character very strikingly, the surface being almost as rough and on the 
whole darker than is the case in Zefioza cristata and similiar species. 
These forms were growing with others in every way typical. Such an 
1 Bot. Centrbl. LXXX., 1899, p. 333. 
