Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileatt. 



Plate XXXIX. 



■soon. 



AGARICUS SUBPULVERULENTUS, p.. 



Series Leucosporus. Subgenus Tricholoma. 



Spec. Char. Agaeicus subpulverulentus. Gregaiious, often forming large rings. Pileus from an inch to 

 two inches and a half across ; at first plano-convex, slightly depressed in the centre, round which it is iiTegularly 

 tumid, then again contracted ; the margin always inflexed, never entu-ely unroUed ; firm, compact, fleshy, hygTO- 

 phanous, smooth, hvid, but with an innately-pruinose whitish glitter like hoar-frost. Flesh white. GUIs rounded 

 behind, without a tooth, close, narrow, pallid. Spores ochraceous. Stem solid, equal, smooth, substriate, obsoletely 

 pruinose at the apex, generally cm-ved cxcentrically. Smell and flavour at first agreeable, afterwards astringent. 

 Agaricus subpulvenileutus, Persoon, Fries, Berkeley (MSS.). 



Hab. Forming large rings in bare pastures. Autumn. 



With no showy claims to notice, yet intrinsically pretty and interesting, our Uttle Agaric has been less 

 attended to than it deserved. This is the first time that a portrait of it has been taken, and the copyist has 

 so well seconded the efforts of the original artist, that no truer likeness could be produced ; as far as the 

 pencil is concerned, however, there is so much to be considered in rendering texture as well as form and 

 colour, that it would in general be far easier to make out funguses from mere technical letter-press, without 

 any drawings whatever, than to name drawings of which no notes exist. It does not appear so to the 

 beginner, who is always crying out for plates, and, to a certain point, needs them ; who looks bewildered 

 and grievously disappointed at your stupidity in not instantly naming the portraits from nature he sets 

 before you ; but although an Agaric is an Agaric, which it may be is not so easily settled, and we must beg 

 to direct attention to the point of texture in figuring any example we wish to depict. A glutinous shining 

 pileus, a soft smooth kid-leather one, or the scales and shaggy coat of rougher funguses, are good objects 

 to exercise skill, and must be studied with as much care as the painter employs to show whether his fair 

 lady-sitter wears flannel or velvet for her gown. The present Agaric has a pileus of a very peculiar cha- 

 racter — glittering as if a deHcate film of hoar-frost had formed upon the surface, or a snail left slight traces 

 of its path across it. And we need scarcely say that althongh words can clearly explain tlus fact, no pos- 

 sible skftl in art could do it. The alternate swelHngs and depressions of the pileus are caused by its im- 

 bibing water more in one portion than another; from its crowded manner of growth it is never regularly 

 developed, and the stem is seldom either perpendicular or truly central. Although nearly allied to so many 

 Agarics with white spores, those of A. subpnlverulentus are decidedly ochraceous. We have, however, no 

 sufficient reason therefore to remove it from their society. " The colour of the spores is an excellent means 

 of classification, but must not be insisted upon in too much of the spirit of a Martinet," said our great 



