Order Hymexomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XX. 



AGARICUS MACULATUS, Albertini and Schweinitz. 



Spotted Agaric. 



. Series Leucosporus. Subgenus Chondropodes.' 



S^iec. Char. Agaeicus jiaculatus. Pileus from two to four inches broad, fleshy, rather compact, at fii-st con- 

 vex with an involute margin, then plane or obtusely umbonate, the margin often repand; dry, white, here and there 

 stained with rufous, at length altogether dull buff and rufous. Gills free, very close, naiTow, linear, white. Sjiores 

 ocliroceom. Stem from three to four inches high, from a quarter to half an inch thick, stout, with a cartilaginous 

 bark, striate, stuffed, more or less ventricose, attenuated below, when growing among moss, elongated, nearly equal, 

 prsemorse, supporting itself by cottony fibres. SmeU and flavour slightly acidulous. 

 Agaricus maculatus, Albertini and Sclmeiyiitz, Fries, Berkeley. 

 Hah. In fir plantations. On the open part of Hayes Common among Ung {Calluna vulgaris). Bare. Early autumn. 



Agaricus maculatus is rare ; there are two types of it, one the present subject, the other coarser and 

 larger, deeper in colour, by no means so pretty or pure-looking ; it is found among fir-trees. It is not 

 esculent, and acquires in drying an acid unpleasant scent ; ours grows in a dense ring among fern and ling, 

 but not under trees. 



That our- immediate neighbourhood is singularly prolific in these growths there can be no doubt, and 

 several reasons conduce to render it so. In the first place, Ijing at the edge of the great London basin, 

 where the chalk begins to appear, the soil consists of all the species of detritus the various strata above can 

 afl'ord ; sand, gravel, clay, peat, chalk, hazel-loam, — in fact, a very mixed alluvium is deposited in the 

 valleys, among the rounded, wave-washed outliers of chalk. These valleys have been cultivated from very 

 ancient times, and the hills used as sheep-walks, but the barren dunes of gravel which form the high 

 ground of Kestou Heath and Hayes Common were allowed to remain untouched, their aged pollard-oaks 

 affording fuel to a district where coal was scarcely attainable tiU within the last fifty years. Now the dear 

 old oaks are no longer dismembered, and have nearly forgotten the operation, but doubtless we are indebted 

 for the abundance of Fistidina hepatica, Folyporus quercimis, &c., which they yield, to their having been 

 once so mutilated, while the intact, undisturbed mossy banks and fern-shadowed dells at their feet are 

 gemmed, or disgraced, take it as you please, by a great proportion of those Agarics, Boletuses, Clavarias, 

 &c., the gipsies of botany, unteachable, irreclaimable, who love a soft bed of moss and the fragrance of 



^ Yvom xovhpos, cartilage, s.\\(\.Troiis, 3. foot. Pileus tough, dry. GiUs nearly free, close, white. External coat 

 of the stem subcartilaginous. 



