Order Htmenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XV. 



AGARICUS FASCICULARIS, Hudson. 



Smaller Fasciculate Agaric. 



Series Pratella. Subgenus Hypholoma.^ 



Spec. Char. Agaricus fascicdl.vbis. Gregariovis, densely ceespitose. Pileus from one inch to two inches 

 broad, at first conic, then e,xpanded, umbonate, subcarnose, thick in the centre, more or less irregular from the 

 tufted manner of growth, ochraceous tawny yellow, the margin thin, pale yellow, with portious of the veil adhering 

 to it, often stained with the spores. GiUs greenish, clouded, adnate with a decurrent tooth ; spores dusky ferru- 

 ginous, with a purplish tinge. Stem from two to nine inches long, two lines thick, cui-ved, flexuous and unequal, 

 hollow, fibrillose or squaraulose, yellow, greenish above. Eing stained with the spores, which mark its place on the 

 stem after itself has disappeared. Taste bitter and nauseous, subdeliquescent in wet weather. 

 Agaricus fascicularis, Hudson, Witliering, Frks, Berkeley. 

 Hah. Eoots of trees, gate-posts, &c. From April till November. 



Everybody must recognize this, the commonest of Agarics, haunting the purlieus of civilization, and 

 preferring the decayed stump of a post, or similar artificially prepared site, to the " wild wood " which 

 shelters and nurtures so many of its brethren. Not that sylvan habitats are utterly renounced by oui' 

 intrusive friend, but it appears to like very open situations, — a bank surmounted by park paling, a gate- 

 post, &c., and to shun the drip of trees. 



Agaricus fascicularis is so named from its densely caespitose mode of growth, fasciculated, with many 

 stems pressed and crowded or faggoted up together. Young groups are often very pretty, their woven 

 veils partially giving way and showing the pale greenish gills, as yet unstained by the spores. Agaricus 

 lateritius resembles very strongly our present subject, indeed, small fasciculate specimens of the larger 

 species, and showy well- developed ones of the smaller, could scarcely be distinguished from each other, 

 except by that certain test, the colour of the spores : in A. lateritius these are of a chalky dull purple, 

 without any rusty tinge ; in A. fascicularis a ferruginous shade is always present. This difference is very 

 perceptible when a pileus of each kind has been reversed on glass, to deposit the dust from its gUls. Both 

 these closely-related Agarics are bitter, but A. fascicularis most unpleasantly so ; whether possessing any 

 medical virtue in right of this quality we do not know (and there are bitters enough beside), yet as a 

 common production it might take the place of costly drugs, were its qualities ascertained to be useful. 



' From i^i7, a iceb, and \!ojxa, a. fringe. Veil fugacious, woven, fixed to the margin of the pileus and stem. 

 Stem firm, subsolid, distinct from the pileus. Pileus fleshy, convex, then plane. Gills adnate, close, subdeliques- 

 cent, ciEspitose, growing at the roots of trees, posts, Sec. 



