Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XXXVI. 



AGARICUS DEALBATUS, sou,erb>^. 



Dirty White Agaric. 

 Series Letjcosporijs. Subgenus Clitocybe. 



Subdivision Dasyphylli. 



Spec. Char. Agahicus dealbatus. Pileus from three-quarters of an inch to two inches broad, white, greyish 

 cream-colour, or tinged with rose ; at fii'st convex, then plane, orbicular, the extreme margin only involute, or 

 variously repand, lobed, and undulate ; sometimes depressed from the turning up of the margins, which in age are 

 entirely unrolled ; dry, smooth, sliining, but clothed with a minute farinaceous silkiness, which turns brown when 

 bruised, and retains the impression of the fingers ; in wet weather water-soaked in concentric zones, forming small 

 ridges when dry. Flesh thin, pallid. Gills adnate, not decurreut, though apparently so in aged specimens, from 

 the depression of the pileus, very close, cream-white, moderately broad. Spores white. Stem an inch or more high, 

 from two lines to a quarter of an inch thick, often cui'ved as if excentric, flexuous, greyish-white or rose-tinted, 

 turning brown when handled, prumose at the apex, stuffed, the fibrous bark very distinct. Odour fungoid and 

 disagreeable. 

 Agaricus dealbatus, Sowerby, Fries, Berkeley, Grev'ille. 



Hah. In rings, or gregarious, in pastures ; often csespitose or tiled one over the other. Autimin. 



There is a notice of this Agaric in our First Series as one of those likely to be confused with the Cham- 

 pignon of mushroom merchants, Agaricus oreades. It resembles also A. suhpulverulentus of Fries in colour, 

 and the disposition to excentricity of stem : that fungus we shall shortly present to our friends, when they 

 can compare the portraits for themselves. The subject now given is less fleshy than its relative (for they 

 are related), and lias a more disagreeable smell. A. dealbatus is not esculent, although not virulently 

 injurious : we have known it eaten by mistake for A. oreades, vrhen, as the flavour was not relished, the 

 gourmand's escaping with only nausea may be accounted for by the small quantity consumed. It is one of 

 the latest of the autumnal Agarics, springing, often in rings, when scarcely any of the more tender species 

 remain, so that it is much more frequently noticed than its deserts warrant, catcliing the eye as it glitters 

 among the long dank grass, in company with Little white Puff-balls. It is by no means an inelegant 

 Agaric ; but our chief reason for bringing it forward is to distinguish it from more worthy characters of its 

 class. 



It is amusing, but also highly gratifying, to compare the changes eighty years have made in the 

 opinion of the world as to the proper studies of women. While deprecating, as every truly feminine mind 



