Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XLIII. 



AGARICUS LOBATUS, w% 



Series Leucospobus. Subgenus Clitoctbe. 



Subdivision Dasyphylli. 



Spec. Char. Agaricus lobatus. Pileus from two to four inches across, at first convex, at length infundibuli- 

 form, sub-repand, lobed and waved, the margin involute, thin and brittle ; testaceous, with rufescent stains ; paler 

 in age, smooth, shining, not viscid. Flesh pallid. Gills decurrent, simple, at first much paler than the pileus, 

 afterwards growing darker, and nearly of a similar hue. Spores white. Stem two inches high, four lines thick, 

 attenuated upwards, yellowish rufescent-brown, stuffed, hollow in age, often curved when sub-caespitose. Odour 

 acidulous ; flavour bitter. Ranked by Clusius among the pernicious species. 

 Agaricus lobatus, Soicerby. 



— inversus, var. lobatus, Fries. 



fimbriatus, var. lobatus, Berkeley (Plora vol.). 



Uab. On a hedge-bank, near Croydon. Generally under fir-trees. 



The common form of A. inversus of Fries is smaller and more compact than Sowerby's A. lobatus ; he 

 himself, however, considered them as mere varieties of the same species, which is placed by Perscon under 

 A. fiaccidus ; the minor specimens met with in fir-plantations are generally gregarious, and less elastic and 

 firm than the major, answering to A. infundibiiliforniis of BuUiard, and also of Schaeffer, who speaks of yet 

 another and rarer example, at first gibbous and destitute of an umbo. According to Fries, the primary form 

 of A. inversus is regular and sobtary ; but all those Agarics which assume a deeply infundibubform shape, 

 when fuUy expanded or repanded as the case may be, are seldom symmetrical, but bend on one side as their 

 position is affected by circumstances. The example given grew on a hedge-bank at Shirley Common, near 

 Croydon, propped up, in aid of its relatively weak slender stem, by grass and dead sticks; we have never 

 found it since ; it is certainly by no means a common fungus, and we cannot help thinking has quite as good 

 a right to be established an independent species as many others so distinguished. 



Why yellow as a colour, and bitter as a flavour, should be as frequently connected as they are, would 

 puzzle much better chemists than ourselves. Most yellow funguses are bitter ; the present case may not 

 appear to be to the point, but there is a decidedly yellow hue beneath the more sober rufescent-brown, which is 

 its nearly uniform livery. The bitter principle is absent in the more common genuine form of A. inversus, 

 which appears a strong evidence that A. lobatus is not a mere variety of that, certainly variable. Agaric ; for 

 though shape, size, and colour may be rated as of small importance, chemical properties are not likely to be 

 sportive in their development. It was formerly supposed, — indeed it is still held as an article of faith in 



