Older Htmenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XLI. 



AGARICUS GRAMMOPODIUS, p.. 



Sulcate-stemmed Agaric. 

 Series Leucosporus. Subgenus Clitocybe. 



■soon. 



Spec. Cliar. Agaricds gkammopodius. PUeus from three to five inches across, at first campaniilate, in- 

 Hexed, afterwards somewhat plane, obsoletely umbonate, more or less repand, lobed, in age depressed, but the darker 

 umbo always apparent ; very smooth, shining, not viscid, hygi'ophanous ; uniform umber, darker only in the centre. 

 Gills adnate, with a tooth on the stem, not decurreut, narrow^ extremely close, much forked, dirty white, never 

 tinged with purple. Flesh very thin towards the margin, white, crisp, flavour impleasant, leaving a disagreeable 

 astringency on the palate. Spores white. Stem smooth, elastic, sulcate, the same colour as the pUeus, scored with 

 darker lines ; firm, thickened and vQlous at the base, tiever marked with purple ; solid but composed of silky con- 

 densed fibre, not celltdar. The whole plant never partaking of any other hue than bistre of various degrees of 

 intensity. Solitary, or forming large rings in pastures. Not esculent. 

 Agaeicus grammopodius, Bulliard, Fries, Berkeley. 



Hah. Pastures. Autumn. 



This is a showy, specious Agaric, of bold, regular, well-developed proportions, and although unas- 

 suming iu colour, by no means devoid of beauty. It is sufBciently like the Bluette, A: personatus, in 

 general configuration and style of growth, to have been selected in mistake for the table by careless 

 observers, who supposed that the peculiar and characteristic colouring of the esculent species had by some 

 means been prevented from displacing itself. As, however, such accidents do not happen, but Bluettes are 

 always more or less blue, and A. grammopodius never is, that one point of difference ought to suffice 

 for the prevention of any cuhnary use being made of the latter. The colouring principle of many Agarics 

 undoubtedly is variable and fugitive, but in tliis it neither washes off, nor does it fade away till age decom- 

 poses the material altogether ; and therefore, although the scored stem of A. grammopodius (whence its 

 name) may appear as if it had possessed, or ought to possess, the purple fibrds of its bi-coloured_ cousin 

 A. jjersonatus, we can only say it never docs, and any Agaric of the family without that remarkable 

 character had better be condemned, or at least left untasted. Besides this main point, a fair comparison 

 between the portraits we have given of each will ascertain that A. grammopodius has much closer, finer gills 

 than A. personatus, and that they are not of the same fleshy tint, growing warmer (Titianesquely speaking) 



