Kauffman: The Genus Gomphidius 115 



same undoubted species, I would get such a variety of Ridgway 

 color names as to be more confusing than helpful. This is due 

 to the fact that one necessarily collects the plants at different 

 stages of maturity. Giving a general color description seems to 

 be the only useful procedure, but even thus, the specific differ- 

 ences can be brought out. It is desirable to obtain the color of 

 the gills before the fruit-body is overmature, because the very 

 mature gills of the different species may be much alike. For 

 example, the gills of G. furcatus Peck are "testaceous" (Ridg.) 

 at a certain stage, and those of the new form, G. viscidus described 

 in this paper, are "tawny" and later "sepia" in color. The 

 European species G. glutinosus and G. viscidus should be dis- 

 tinguishable by their gill-color according to the emphasis (in 

 italics) usually placed on the colors given, but unfortunately 

 there is no exact agreement among European mycologists; and 

 as explained above, this is not surprising when not all the stages 

 are given. Reading between the lines, it seems evident that the 

 prevailing color of the gills of G. glutinosus is some shade of 

 gray, while those of G. viscidus tend to have tawny shades which 

 become clouded with olivaceous or purplish hues. 



The gill-trama is said by Fayod (4) to be divergent ("bi- 

 laterale"). My own records are not complete for all of the 

 species, but in my collection of G. glutinosus in Idaho, the gill- 

 trama was composed of interwoven floccose hyphae of large cells. 

 The texture of the gill-trama is quite mucilaginous and tends to 

 disintegrate. 



The spores of all the species of Gomphidius known are elon- 

 gated, fusiform or subfusiform to subcylindrical, and generally 

 large in size. The largest spores were reported by Dr. Peck 

 for his species G. fiavipes; the maximum length recorded by 

 him was 30 ^. In examining the type, which was dried too 

 hard and is not very satisfactory, I found enough spores measur- 

 ing 25 IX in length to make it very probable that the extremes 

 are 30 /i. The color of the epispore as seen under the microscope 

 can best be called sooty varying in intensity in different species 

 or during different stages in the maturity of the spores. In 

 some species the epispore appears punctate under high magni- 

 fication. 



