Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XXXIV. 



AGARICUS VAGINATUS, BMiard. 



Sheathed Agaric. 

 Series Leucosporus. Subgenus Amanita.' 



Spec. Cliar. Agaeicus vaginatus. Pileus at first conico-campanulate, when fully expanded plane, slightly 

 depressed in the centre, scarcely umbonate, fleshy except at the margin, which is consequently pectinato-sulcate ; 

 viscid when moist, beautifully shining when dry ; at first there are a few broad scales, the remains of the volva, but 

 these soon vanish ; of various eoloui-s, more usually mouse-grey, but occasionally tawny or inclining to buff. Gills 

 free, veutricose, broadest in front, often imbricated, white ; spores white. Stem six inches or more high, half an 

 inch thick, attenuated upwards, brittle, sericeo-squamulose, scarcely fibrillose, splitting with ease longitudinally, 

 stufied with fine cottony fibre, at length hollow, except at the very base, which is solid ; not bulbous, obtuse at the 

 base, where it is furnished with a volva, adnate for about an inch, then free, in general surrounding the stem like a 

 sheath, but sometimes with the margin expanded. Ring absent. Smell scarcely any ; flavour agi-eeable ; esculent, 

 but not free from suspicion ; the fulvous variety, which is a much more coarsely developed fungus in all its characters, 

 being certainly dangerous. 

 Agaricus vaginatus, BulUard, Fries, Berkeley, Vittadini, Krombhoh. 



Hah. Woods and pastures ; common. 



It happens that the genus Amanita contains in it some of the most excellent species for the table, as 

 well as some of the most injurious, at least to the human system, for we cannot consider the result of ex- 

 periment made " iu corpore vili " satisfactory where " our noble selves " are ia question. To refrain from 

 that which caused the greatest inconvenience to a dog, is reasonable enough, but to eat of that whicli 

 simply made no difference to his organs of digestion, might try ours severely ; and therefore, although we 

 have several times eaten the delicate and really excellent mouse-coloured variety of A. vaginatus, it was not 



' Amanita, a name given to some esculent fungus by Galen. Veil double : one universal, covering the whole 

 plant in a yoimg state, distinct from the epidermis, at length burst by the protrusion of the pileus, part remaining at 

 the base of the stem, part either falling off or forming warts on the pileus ; the other partial, at first covering the 

 gills, and afterwards forming a reflected subpersistent ring on the top of the stipes. Stem stuffed, at length hollow, 

 squamoso-fibrillose, thickened at the base. Pileus with the disc fleshy, the margin thin, campanulate, then plane ; 

 viscid when saturated with moisture. Gills attenuated behind, free, broader in front, ventricose, close, but little 

 unequal, when full grown denticidated. Subsolitary fungi, growing on the gi'ound, or dung, never on wood ; not 

 soon decaying. 



