Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate V. 



AGARICUS ACUTESQUAMOSUS, Fries. 



Series Leucosporus. Sub-genus Lepiota.^ 



Sub-division Clypeolarii. 



Spec. Char. Agahicus ACUTEsauAMOSUS. Pileus brownish-yellow, ferrugineous, fleshy, obtuse, hirto-floccose, 

 afterwards with acute, erect, squaiTose, echinate scales. Stem sub-stuiFed, at length hollow in the centre, stout, strong, 

 bulbous, priiinose above the middle ring. GiUs approximate, lanceolate, simple. Humble, sub-inodorous. 



Hab. In grassy gardens. 



We liave given the characters of tliis pretty Agaric, which was new to English botany when we first 

 found it, from the Epicrisis of Fries, but in some respects our observations differ from his, as notes made at 

 the time will show. 



Veil matted to the stem, not consisting of arachnoid tlureads, but resembhng finely combed cotton wool ; 

 there is no well-defined ring, but at the middle of the stem, where the veil usually forms one, the web is 

 closer and firmer than the rest of it : when stretched and torn by the expansion of the pileus, it is seen 

 that the tlireads of the veil proceed from the whole length of the stem up to the narrow collar at the apex, 

 into which the gills are inserted ; the peronate wool is buff. The flesh reddens slightly beneath the cuticle, 

 which is tliick, tough, and fibrous ; the spines are composed of the fasciculated extremities of the fibre which 

 forms the epidermis, brought, like the hairs of a painting-brush, to a fine point. The gills are extremely 

 narrow, attenuated both ways, very close and occasionally dimidiately forked ; the stem is made up entirely 

 of silky fibres, looser towards the central channel, which has at first a woolly stufiBng, but is hollow in ' 

 age. The taste is mild and insipid, the smell hot and disagreeable, like a flint from which you have been 

 striking fire. 



Nothing can exceed the beauty of the appendage called with justice a veil, in this Agaric ; others 

 of the family are slirmuled, like Turkish ladies, in a thick close material, differing from the coquettish 

 sylph-like transparent elegance of this, as calico does from the finest webs of the Indian loom. No pencil 

 can represent "the delicately woven texture, and although we have tried our best, nature fairly defied us to 

 do her handiwork justice. 



We have often repeated the remark that the Agaric tribes in general prefer being denizens of the 

 wildest and freest spots to locating themselves as a civilized community ; had they speech they would say, 

 with the poet of freedom, Ebenezer Elliot, 



' From XfTrW, a scale. Veil single, universal, closely adhering to and confluent mth the epidermis, when burst 

 forming a more or less persistent ring towards the middle of the stem. Stem hollow, stuffed with more or less 

 densely woven arachnoid threads ; equal or thickened at the base, fibrillose. POeus more or less fleshy, but not 

 compact, ovate when young, soon campanulate, then expanded and umbouate. Flesh white, soft. GiUs unequal, 

 never distant nor decurrent ; colour of the gills white, in some varieties yellow. Solitary, persistent, growing on 

 the ground, not dangerous. 



